I 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE 
PAST  AND  PRESENT 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE 
PAST  AND  PRESENT 

A  SERIES  OF  LECTURES  DELIVERED 
BY  MEMBERS  OF  THE  FACULTY  OF 
THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 


EDITED  BY 

JAMES  A.  MONTGOMERY,  PH.D.,  S.T.D. 


PHILADELPHIA  AND  LONDON 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 

1918 


M  L 


COPYRIGHT,  1918,  BY  J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 


PUBLISHED  JANUARY,  1918 


•    •„ 

.  .       •    •  • 
•-•     *•••       •  • .  •  .     • 


Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  J.  B.  Lippincott  Company 
A  t  the  Washington  Square  Press,  Philadelphia,  U.S.A. 


TO 
PROVOST  EDGAR  FAHS  SMITH 

IN  GRATEFUL  RECOGNITION  OF  HIS  SERVICES  FOR 
THE  WIDER  USEFULNESS  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY, 
THIS  VOLUME  IS  DEDICATED  BY  THE  LECTURERS 


416020 


PREFACE 

THE  widespread  interest  in  the  history  of  religion  was 
well  attested  by  the  enthusiasm  and  interest  aroused  by 
the  following  lectures  delivered  during  the  winter  of  1916- 
1917  by  members  of  the  Faculty  of  the  Graduate  School 
of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania. 

We  believe  that  the  reader  will  find  a  peculiar  merit 
in  the  volume  as  each  religion  is  treated  by  one  who  has 
made  a  specialty  of  that  field.  It  was  left  to  each  man 
to  set  forth  his  subject  according  to  his  own  ideas  of 
matter  and  proportion — the  result  is  the  bracing  individ- 
uality of  each  chapter,  and  the  spontaneity  of  the  whole. 

To  bring  home  to  our  readers  the  ideals,  the  history, 
and  the  significance  of  certain  great  religions  has  been 
our  aim,  and  in  our  endeavor  simplicity,  directness,  and 
accuracy  have  been  our  standards.  We  have  not  gone 
beyond  the  original  group  of  University  lectures  in  order 
to  secure  a  treatment  of  religions  not  herein  discussed; 
the  book  remains  therefore  entirely  a  product  of  the 
Faculty  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania. 

JAMES  A.  MONTGOMERY 

Chairman    (1916-1917)    of   the 
Group  of  the  History  of  Religions, 
University  of  Pennsylvania 
December  i,  1917 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PACK 

I.    PRIMITIVE  RELIGION 9 

Definition  of  Religion;  diversity  of  the  Primitive  field, 
p.  9 — science,  philosophy,  advanced  conceptions  in 
Primitive  religion,  10-13 — varieties  in  cult,  14-15 — 
Animism,  15-18 — Totemism,  18-20 — Fetishism,  20-21 — 
Taboo,  21-23 — Primitive  ethics,  23-26 — the  Culture 
Hero,  26-28 — the  Gluskabe  Cycle,  28-30 — absence  of 
original  monotheism,  belief  in  life  after  death,  3of — 
Bibliography,  32. 

FRANK  G.  SPECK,  Pn.D. 

II.  THE  EGYPTIAN  RELIGION 33 

Over-estimation  of  the  religious  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians, 
p.  33 — conservatism  preserved  primitive  forms  and  ideas, 
34 — revolution  effected  in  Egyptology  by  the  Pyramid 
Texts,  34-36 — primitive  animism  of  the  Egyptians,  the 
gods  localized  spirits,  36-39 — partial  elevation  of  the 
gods  to  cosmic  sphere,  38 — the  sun-god  and  gods,  39 — 
moon,  planets,  40 — the  sky,  41-43 — the  earth  and  ocean 
gods,  43 — retention  of  many  ancient  gods  without  a 
mythology,  44 — the  Osirian  circle,  Osiris,  Isis,  Horus, 
Seth,  45-48 — explanation  of  the  deep  impression  made 
by  the  Egyptian  religion  upon  the  Greeks  and  Romans, 
48f — Bibliography,  49. 

W.  MAX  MULLER,  PH.D. 

III.  THE  RELIGION  OF  BABYLONIA  AND  ASSYRIA...     50 

The  Sumerian  and  Akkadian  elements  in  Babylonia,  p. 
5Oy-their  civilizations,  51-53 — Assyria  53 — primitive 
animism  of  the  religion,  54 — early  local  gods,  Ea,  Enlil, 
Ningirsu,  'etc.,  55f — Marduk,  56 — absorption  of  deities 
into  one,  differentiation  of  divine  functions  into  many 
deities,  57 — centralization  of  pantheons,  triads,  58f — the 
Assyrian  pantheon,  Ashur,  etc.,  59-61 — monotheizing 
tendencies,  61 — the  cult,  62ff — incantations,  64-65 — 
their  spiritual  elements,  65-67 — divination,  67ff — liver 
divination,  68-70^— astrology,  70-72 — omens,  72 — festi- 
vals, 73 — ethical  ideals,  738 — Bibliography,  75, 

MORRIS  JASTROW,  JR.,  PH.D.,  LL.D 
3 


CONTENTS 


IV.    THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 76 

Rediscovery  of  the  ancient  world,  p.  76 — geographical 
position  of  Palestine  and  its  effects  on  Hebrew  religion, 
78-80 — divisions  of  the  history  into  the  ist  century  A.  D., 
80-82 — the  God  of  the  Hebrews,  his  intense  personality, 
82ff— criticism  of  "Ethical  Monotheism,"  82 — his  self- 
revelation,  83 — his  particularism,  84 — his  unique  relation 
with  Israel,  86 — relation  with  other  divine  beings,  87- 
89 — his  hypostases,  89 — origin  of  Hebrew  monotheism, 
9°~93 — inner  logic,  93 — his  relation  to  the  world,  94-96 
— the  problem  of  evil,  96 — a  God  of  history,-  97-101 — 
man's  moral  relation  to  Yahwe,  101-103 — position  of  the 
cult,  103 — Prophecy,  104-106— the  ritual  and  its  his- 
torical stages,  106-109— -eschatology,  logff — Bibliog- 
raphy, 112. 

JAMES  A.  MONTGOMERY,  PH.D.,  S.T.D. 

V.    THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  VEDA 114 

The  Vedic  literature,  p.  114-116— the  rita  and  the  cult, 
1 1 6-1 1 8 — the  incantations  and  hymns,  1 18 — the  fire-cult, 
119 — the  s0wa-cult,  120 — the  Rig-veda  the  hymn-book 
of  the  fire  cult,  121-123 — tne  deities  ritualistic  entities, 
123-125 — Indra,  125 — the  sacrifice  the  end  in  itself,  126 — 
popular  religion,  127 — Ritualistic  Henotheism,  128-130 — 
an  abstract  universal  Deity  129 — philosophic  Monism, 
130— doctrine  of  the  Upanishads,  131 — appreciation  of 
the  Upanishads,  1326? — Bibliography,  134, 

FRANKLIN  EDGERTON,  PH.D. 

VI.    BUDDHISM 135 

Contrast  of  Buddhism  with  Brahmanism,  their  common 
basis,  p.  135-137 — the  languages  of  Buddhism,  the  Pali 
literature,  137-139 — Buddhism  thoroughly  Hindu,  139 — 
in  its  three  fundamental  doctrines,  (i)  Pessimism,  140 — 
(2)  Transmigration  and  Karma,  141-144— (3)  Salvation, 
Nirvana,  144-157 — the  Buddhist  doctrine  of  the  Buddha, 
his  life,  I47f — of  the  Congregation,  148 — of  the  Law,  and 
the  Four  Noble  Truths,  150-152 — the  ethics  of  Bud- 
dhism, 153-155 — Buddhism  and  Christianity,  I56f — 
Jainism,  I57ff — its  origin,  its  asceticism,  157-159 — its 
present  condition  and  literature,  159— Bibliography,  1 60, 

FRANKLIN  EDGERTON,  PH.D. 

VII.    BRAHMANISM  AND  HINDUISM 161 

Brahmanism,  the  old  Vedic  religion  enlarged  by  adoption 
of  popular  ceremonies,  p.  161-163 — caste,  163-166 — the 
Brahman  caste,  166 — the  outcasts,  i67f — Hinduism,  its 
definition,  168-170 — the  sect  of  £iva,  170-171 — his  con- 
sort Parvati,  172 — Vishnu,  172 — Krishna,  173 — identifi- 

4 


CONTENTS 

cation  with  Vishnu,  174-^-essential  monotheism  of 
Hinduism,  175 — the  worship,  176 — intellectual  basis: 
pessimism,  transmigration,  salvation,  176 — the  "way  of 
knowledge"  and  the  "way  of  works,"  177 — the  doctrine 
of  bhakti,  178 — syncretizing  tendencies,  178-181 — sum- 
mary, 181 — Bibliography,  182. 

FRANKLIN  EDGERTON,  PH.D. 
/VIII     ZOROASTRIANISM 183 

The  Parsis,  or  Fire-Worshipers'of  India,  p.  183 — the  three 
conspicuous  features  of  their  religion,  1 83- iSfr— Zoroaster 
and  his  preaching,  1 86^— the  spread  of  his  religion,  187 — 
the  origin  of  the  Parsi  community,  188-190 — the  Zoro- 
astrian  literature,  A  vesta,  Gathas,  etc.,  190 — the  discov- 
ery and  study  of  the  Avesta,  191-193 — the  theology, 
Ahuramazda,  193 — dualism  the  Evil  Spirit,  194-196^- 
the  archangels,  196-199 — the  arch-demons,  199 — man  in 
his  relation  to  these  two  spheres,  200 — teleology,  201-203 
— the  good  deeds,  a  pastoral  religion,  203-205 — the  pre- 
Zoroastrian  religion,  205-207 — Zoroaster,  his  life  and 
doctrine,  2076: — Bibliography,  2IO, 

ROLAND  G.  KENT,  PH.D. 

IX.    MOHAMMEDANISM 211 

Sources  of  the  study,  p.  211 — life  of  Mohammed,  211- 
213 — his  mission  religious  and  political,  spread  of  Islam, 
213-215 — the  problem  of  the  religion,  215 — Arabia  and 
the  Arabs,  216-218 — Mohammed's  monotheism,  218- 
221 — his  early  sincerity,  first  converts,  221 — the  Hejira 
and  his  later  development,  222 — founder  of  a  Pan- 
Arabic  empire,  his  death,  223 — definition  of  Islam, 
climax  of  earlier  revelation,  224 — the  Koran,  225-227 — 
an  unsystematic  book,  open  to  variety  of  interpretations, 
227 — the  Sunnites  and  Shi'ites,  228 — rites  of  Islam, 
229ff — prayer,  229 — fasting,  Ramadan,  230 — the  Haj, 
231-234 — its  primitive  origin,  234-236 — the  poor  tax, 
236 — the  Caliphate,  theoretical  union  of  Church  and 
State,  237-239 — simplicity  of  doctrines,  239 — of  ethics, 
240 — future  of  Islam,  2418: — Bibliography,  243, 
MORRIS  JASTROW,  JR.,  PH.D.,  LL.D. 

X.    THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 244 

General  characteristics:  absence  of  fixed  institutions, 
freedom  of  Greek  religion,  p.  244-249 — pomp  and  joyous- 
ness  of  the  religion,  249f — the  darker  side,  250 — religious- 
ness of  the  Greeks,  252 — importance  of  the  study,  253- 
255 — its  earlier  neglect,  255 — increased  knowledge  of  the 
religion,  archaeology,  the  jEgean  civilization,  256-260 — 
the  ^Egean  religion,  260-264 — its  environment  and 
influence  on  the  mainland,  265-267 — prehistoric  religion 
of  the  mainland,  animism,  polytheism,  gradual  condensa- 

5 


CONTENTS 

tion,  267-270 — origin  of  the  Greek  gods,  original  fetish- 
ism, 270-273 — primitive  Pelasgian  beliefs  and  practices, 
274-278 — oriental  influences,  278 — the  Hellenic  invasion, 
279 — the  Olympians,  280-282 — the  Homeric  poems  and 
the  Olympian  system,  282-287 — the  Homeric  hell,  287- 
289 — the  mystery  cults,  2900* — the  Dionysiac  cult,  290— 
Orphic  mysticism,  291-293 — its  influence,  293-295 — the 
Eleusinian  mysteries,  295-297 — religion  in  Athens  in  5th 
and  4th  centuries,  2986* — the  philosophical  protest,  300- 
302 — Plato,  302-304 — religion  in  Hellenistic  and  Roman 
ages,  3O4ff — failure  of  Greek  ideals,  305-307 — personal 
religion,  religious  communities,  foreign  cults,  307-310 — 
immortality,  deification  of  men,  310-312 — Gnosticism, 
312 — philosophical  refinement,  313 — Bibliography,  314. 

WALTER  WOODBURN  HYDE,  PH.D. 

XI.    THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS 316 

Four  epochs  of  Roman  religious  experience,  p.  316-319 —  x 
the  primitive  characteristics:  magic,  319 — dread  of 
nature,  320 — the  numina,  321-323 — Numa,  323 — gods  of 
the  Roman  state,  324-326 — impersonal  individualities, 
326— the  traditional  rjtes,  327-330 — importation  of  other 
Italian  gods,  330-332 — the  triad  of  Jupiter,  Juno  and 
Minerva,  33^— -adoption  of  Greek  cults,  332 — Greek 
anthropomorphism  and  rites,  332-334 — depression  of  the 
Punic  Wars,  introduction  of  Magna  Mater,  334-336 — 
degeneration  of  religion,  336 — religious  philosophies,  337 
— the  official  religion,  338-34O-^-revival  of  religion  under 
Augustus,  the  Olympians,  Jupiter  as  omnipotent  father, 
340-342 — introduction  of  emperor- worship,  342 — moral 
insufficiency  of  the  religion,  342-y-cult  the  expression  of  its 
genius,  its  final  failure,  343 — Bibliography,  344. 

GEORGE  DEPUE  HADZSITS,  PH.D. 

XII.    THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  TEUTONS 345 

Definitions,  p.  345 — Teutonic  dualism,  cosmic  concep- 
tions, the  giants,  346f — advent  of  the  gods,  347ff — the 
Norns,  dwarfs,  etc.,  249 — the  cosmic  divisions,  350-352 — 
the  gods,  352ff— Wodan,  353— Thor,  354~35^— TYr>  356 
Loki,  357 — other  deities,  358— the  cult,  359ff— sacrifice, 
359f — prayer,  360 — magic,  temples,  idols,  361 — escha- 
tology,  Valhall,  361 — end  of  the  world,  362— Bibliog- 
raphy, 363. 

AMANDUS  JOHNSON,  PH.D. 

XIII.    EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 364 

The  three  stages  of  the  subject ;  the  Gospel  of  Jesus,  3641! 
— repentance,  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  364-366 — Jesus' 
place  in  his  own  Gospel,  366 — the  Gospel  preached  by  the 
6 


CONTENTS 

Apostles,  3676? — their  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus, 
of  Him  as  Messiah  and  Saviour,  367 — the  problem  of  the 
Christian  experience  of  salvation  from  sin,  368 — its  mani- 
festations, 369 — testimony  of  Mozoomdar,  370 — of 
Ignatius,  371— the  Day  of  Pentecost,  372 — various  phases 
of  the  conception  of  salvation,  373 — doctrine  of  the  Spirit, 
374 — of  the  sacrificial  death  of  Christ,  374 — spiritual 
phenomena  of  the  early  Church,  375 — worship,  baptism, 
the  Eucharist,  376-379 — spiritual  gifts  and  their  disci- 
pline, 379 — organization  of  the  Church,  prophets,  deacons 
bishops,  elders,  380-382 — break  with  Judaism,  382 — 
Paul,  383 — doctrine  of  the  resurrection,  384 — of  the 
person  of  Jesus,  38sf— the  Gospel  among  the  Gentiles, 
386ff — contact  with  current  systems  of  religion  and 
philosophy,  Philo,  Hermetic  literature,  Alexandrian 
philosophy,  386-389 — Gnosticism,  389 — reactions,  389- 
393 — ideas  of  the  sacraments,  393-395 — of  the  Church, 
395 — summary,  397 — Bibliography,  398. 

WILLIAM  ROMAINE  NEWBOLD,  PH.D. 

XIV.    MEDIEVAL  CHRISTIANITY 399 

Characteristics  of  the  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages: 
elaborate  and  unified  organization,  ignorance  of  the  laws 
of  nature,  superiority  to  the  State,  p.  399ff — the  organiza- 
tion of  the  Church  in  a  half-converted  world  tended  to 
formality,  400 — the  danger  counterbalanced  by  monasti- 
cism,  standing  for  spiritual  things,  400-402 — and  existing 
alongside  the  secukr  life,  401-403 — its  contributions  to 
civilization,  404 — its  democratic  character,  404-407 — 
recognition  of  women,  407 — its  elasticity  in  producing 
and  including  various  types  of  religious  experience,  408 — 
final  conventionalization  of  monasticism,  Francis  of 
Assisi,  409 — the  Church's  authority  unrivalled,  resultant 
liberty  of  opinion,  410-412 — religion  part  of  every-day 
life,  412-414 — conception  of  the  universe  as  dependent 
upon  arbitrary  forces,  demons,  414 — the  saints  as  patrons, 
415— magic,  416 — identity  of  Church  and  State,  4176? — 
divine  superiority  of  the  Church,  418-421 — a  check  to  the 
unlimited  sovereignty  of  the  State,  421 — its  social  and 
economic  control  of  life,  422 — difference  of  modern  con- 
ditions, 423 — Bibliography,  424. 

ARTHUR  C.  ROWLAND,  PH.D. 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST 
AND  PRESENT 

CHAPTER  I 

PRIMITIVE  RELIGIONS 

BY  FRANK  G.  SPECK 

BEFORE  undertaking  the  study,  brief  as  it  may  be,  of 
primitive  religions,  or  more  exactly,  the  religions  of  primi- 
tive man,  we  must  accept  the  broadest  conceivable  defini- 
tion of  the  term,  one  which  defines  religion  as  that 
which  expresses  in  life  the  relationship  between  man 
and  the  supernatural  realm.  We  need  a  definition  of 
this  broad  character  if  we  intend  to  analyze  and  discuss 
the  various  types  of  philosophy,  the  rites  of  worship  and 
the  beliefs  expressing  the  inter-activity  between  man  and 
the  supernatural  beings,  which  play  such  an  important 
part  in  the  mental  life  of  so-called  savages.  We  shall 
proceed  then,  recognizing  the  idea  that  the  fetish  worship 
of  the  West  Coast  African  negroes,  the  universalism  of 
the  Algonquian  and  Iroquois  Indians,  the  demonism 
of  the  Eskimo,  the  ancestor  worship  of  the  South 'African 
Zulu,  as  well  as  that  of  the  Chinese,  are  as  much  the 
manifestations  of  religion  in  the  real  sense  as  are  the 
phenomena  of  the  more  advanced  types — what  we  may 
term  Messianic  types  because  of  the  importance  of  the 
semi-divine  revealer  personage  in  them.  Some  idea  may 
be  gained  of  the  astonishing  diversity  of  the  field  when 
one  realizes  that,  for  instance,  in  North  America  alone 
one  encounters  several  hundred  different  native  languages 
and  most  of  these  are  the  avenues  of  expression  for  as 

9 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

many  varieties  of  religious  belief  and  practice,  while 
again  in  Africa,  Australia,  Oceania  and  Asia,  types  of 
religion  are  about  as  numerous  as  the  tribes  themselves. 
Is  it  any  wonder,  then,  that  until  present-day  methods 
of  analysis,  classification  and  definition  are  introduced 
into  the  study  of  primitive  religions  the  attitude  of  the 
student  is  as  yet  that  of  the  pioneer  classifier  of  data  in 
a  new  science? 

In  dealing  with  a  subject  so  bewilderingly  diffuse,  I 
propose  to  systematize  by  presenting  first  some  discussion 
of  primitive  philosophy  and  mythology,  then  to  touch 
upon  the  present  status  of  the  doctrines  of  animism, 
naturism,  totemism,  fetishism,  the  taboo,  and  primitive 
ethics  as  religious  phenomena,  then  to  give  a  discussion 
of  the  culture-hero  concept  with  a  concrete  original  illus- 
tration of  the  same  from  a  primitive  tribe  in  America. 
It  is  rather  unfortunate,  considering  our  limitations,  that 
before  passing  to  a  concrete  presentation  of  what  primi- 
tive religion  actually  is,  we  shall  have  to  give  attention 
to  fallacious  concepts  regarding  the  life  of  primitive  man 
in  general.  Unfortunately  again,  he  who  speaks  of  the 
philosophical  concepts  of  the  so-called  savage  must  adopt 
an  apologetic  attitude  by  proving,  if  indeed  he  can,  that 
the  savage  has  any  philosophy  at  all. 

How  surprising  then  it  must  seem  to  the  uninformed 
to  become  aware  for  the  first  time,  that  in  the  conception 
of  savage  mankind  the  idea  of  evolution  in  nature,  for 
instance,  is  an  exceedingly  old  one.  Quoting  material 
presented  by  Dr.  Kroeber,  we  find  in  Polynesian  mythol- 
ogy, as  an  illustration,  that  a  series  of  origins  by  birth 
is  an  explanation  of  cosmic  features.1  In  Samoan,  fire 
and  water  married  and  begat  earth,  rocks  and  trees.  In 
Hawaiian  mythology  a  protracted  period  of  primeval 
night  gave  birth  to  eight  periods  which  were  literally 

1  A.  L.  Kroeber  *  Inheritance  by  Magic/  American  Anthropolo- 
gist, vol.  18,  No.  i  (1916). 

TO 


PRIMITIVE  RELIGIONS 

born  from  each  other.  In  the  first,  appeared  worms, 
corals,  shells,  seaweed,  kelp  and  grass;  in  the  second, 
insects  and  birds ;  in  the  third,  trees,  jelly  fish,  fishes  and 
whales;  in  the  fourth,  turtles  and  cultivable  plants;  in 
the  fifth,  pigs  and  human  arts;  in  the  sixth,  mice  and 
porpoises;  in  the  seventh,  visions,  sound,  thoughts  and 
sayings;  in  the  eighth,  man.  Among  the  California  In- 
dians, Solitude  and  Emptiness  appeared  first  in  the  cos- 
mic series;  Being  and  Existence  then  found  themselves 
there. 

In  American  Indian  mythologies,  almost  universally, 
the  germ  of  the  evolutionary  scheme  is  apparent  in  the 
frequent  reference  to  pre-existing  times  when  men  were 
animals  and  became  transformed,  through  accidental 
stages,  into  their  present-day  form.  One  might  safely 
say,  indeed,  that  the  idea  of  an  out-and-out  creation  of 
matter  is  rather  inconsistent  with  American  Indian  nature 
philosophy.  The  idea  of  a  natural  unfolding  of  stages 
of  life  is  certainly  the  dominant  one  here.  In  fact,  the 
human  mind  appears  to  have  employed  only  two  idea 
processes  in  explaining  to  itself  the  origin  of  the  world, 
the  idea  of  evolution  and  the  idea  of  creation.  Both  are 
presumably  derived  from  analogies  of  concrete  events  wit- 
nessed in  nature :  the  process  of  birth  and  organic  growth 
and  the  process  of  construction  by  human  hands.  So  in 
the  mythology  of  many  savage  peoples,  the  evolutionary 
idea  of  growth  has  equalled  in  strength  that  of  absolute 
creation,  and  we  have  the  apparent  paradox  that  the 
savage  is  more  scientific  in  his  way  of  thinking  about 
origins  than  is  the  civilized  philosopher  of  more  recent 
times.  It  required,  as  it  seems,  the  influence  of  a  Semitic 
people  to  turn  the  modern  world's  thought  into  thinking 
of  creational  origin.  The  primitive  pattern  of  thought 
persists  even  into  the  more  advanced  religions,  for  there 
is  a  striking  quasi-scientific  tone  in  early  Japanese  Shinto 
mythology,  in  early  Greek  cosmogony,  in  the  narratives 

ii 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

of  the  Australian  aborigines,  while  even  the  Hindu  con- 
cept of  transmigration  embodies  a  similar  explanatory 
thought. 

The  ethnologist  is  moreover  often  obliged  to  claim 
dignified  consideration  for  his  field  of  research  by  bring- 
ing forth  data  showing  how  the  concept  of  the  magical, 
even  the  immaculate  conception  and  birth  of  a  culture 
hero,  or  of  a  mythical  world-transformer,  is  an  age-old 
concept  in  the  primitive  world,  how  the  fulfilment  of  an 
altruistic  mission  during  his  life,  and  his  final  departure, 
with  the  promise  of  an  ultimate  return,  all  figure  as 
episodes  in  the  career  of  a  mythical  personage  whose 
attributes  may,  in  part,  even  be  compared  with  those  of 
Christ,  Moses,  Hercules,  Achilles,  Balder,  and  also,  in 
places,  with  those  of  Barbarossa  and  Arthur  of  the  Round 
Table.  What  could  be  more  bewildering  to  the  student 
than  to  find,  for  instance,  in  a  typically  indigenous  set  of 
American  Indian  myths,  many  elements  which  are  cog- 
nate in  substance  with  the  episode  of  the  disobedience 
of  Eve,  the  world  Flood,  the  Ark,  and  the  like. 

Not  from  the  mythology  of  one  American  tribe,  but 
from  the  traditions  of  many  could  be  quoted  specimen 
versions  in  which  a  disobedient  virgin  gives  birth  by 
magical  impregnation  to  a  being  who  at  an  early  age  de- 
velops the  characteristics  of  a  miracle-worker.  Then, 
and  after,  in  the  same  mythical  hero-cycle,  occur  episodes 
which  parallel  in  a  crude  but  significant  fashion  the  epi- 
sodes of  the  more  modern  Messianic  versions,  if  we  may 
refer  to  the  versions  of  Christianity  and  Hinduism  in  this 
category.  We  have  the  manifestation  of  altruism  on  the 
part  of  the  hero  personage  in  behalf  of  human  beings, 
the  destruction  of  existing  monsters  and  personified  evils, 
the  transformation  of  objects  in  Nature  by  means  of 
miraculous  power,  and,  finally,  most  significantly,  the 
departure  of  the  hero  to  another  world,  after  leaving  his 
promise  to  return  again  in  some  future  time  of  need  to 

12 


PRIMITIVE  RELIGIONS 

benefit  his  people.  Can  anyone  fail  to  stand  and  marvel 
before  an  array  of  evidence  of  this  sort,  testifying  to  the 
antiquity  of  the  concept  of  the  supernatural  deliverer  in 
the  realm  of  primitive  thought !  We  need  not  indeed  halt 
our  comparisons  with  these  correlations.  To  every  stu- 
dent of  American  Indian  mythology  instances  of  the  oc- 
currence in  America  of  the  following  roughly  assembled 
list  of  classical  and  old  Testament  mythical  motives  are 
very  familiar.  We  have  parallels  for  the  narrative  of 
Joshua  stopping  the  course  of  the  sun,  Jonah  and  the 
whale,  Lot's  wife,  the  Potiphar  story,  Cain  and  Abel 
(or  the  murder  between  twins  personifying  good  and 
evil),  and  the  Flood.  To  cite  a  few  instances  from  the 
classical  field  one  might  also  mention  correspondences  in 
America  with  such  tales  as  the  animal  foster-mother 
(Romulus  and  Remds),  Pandora,  Achilles,  Orpheus, 
Prometheus  (not  only  fire  being  obtained  by  theft  in 
American  mythology,  but  the  sun,  summer  and  tobacco 
among  the  tales  of  the  eastern  tribes),  the  world  fire, 
Atlantis  or  Medea,  and  the  Magic  Flight,  Phaeton,  the 
Symplegades,  and  many  more  for  which  quotations  might 
be  cited  from  published  American  collections.  Besides 
these,  could  be  mentioned  a  number  of  correspondences 
with  familiar  European  nursery  tales,  such  as  Jack  and 
the  Bean  Stalk,  the  Abandoned  Children,  Big  Claus  and 
Little  Claus,  the  Werwolf,  the  race  between  the  hare  and 
the  tortoise,  Loki,  in  Scandinavian,  Tom  Thumb,  and  the 
Roc.  It  is  difficult  to  resist  the  temptation  of  discussing 
at  this  point  whether,  like  Graebner  and  Ratzel,  we  may 
interpret  the  occurrence  of  these  parallels  as  being  due  to 
an  early  process  of  culture  diffusion  or  whether  like 
Spencer,  Tylor,  Lubbock,  Frazier  and  Lang,  we  are  to 
repose  confidence  in  the  familiar  theories  of  '  independent 
origin  *  and  '  fundamental  mental  unity.'  So  much  for 
what  time  permits  us  to  mention  regarding  primitive 
man's  philosophy  of  nature. 

13 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

Savage  religion  is,  to  proceed  to  another  topic,  no  less 
rich  in  forms  of  worship  than  in  ideas  of  philosophy. 
Through  a  maze  of  practices  in  idolatry,  human,  animal 
and  object  sacrifice,  cannibalism,  invocation,  expiation 
and  bribery,  we  gain  an  insight  into  the  attitude  of  wor- 
ship of  the  savage,  which  might  lead  us,  as  it  has  some 
others,  into  the  feeling  that  the  worship  of  primitive  man 
is  the  outgrowth  of  the  emotion  of  fear.  While  fear  is 
unquestionably  an  element  in  the  religious  activity  of 
primitive  man  at  large,  I  feel  that  it  would  be  unfair  to 
exclude  from  consideration  instances  evidencing  higher 
feelings,  such  as  those  of  gratitude,  of  reverence  and 
affection  for  supernatural  beings,  occurring  in  the  wor- 
ship of  some  primitive  peoples.  Savage  worship  is  at 
bottom  characterized  by  emotions,  so  far  as  we  know 
them,  remarkably  like  those  underlying  modern  worship. 
In  the  primitive  tribe  we  find,  moreover,  the  worshippers 
varying  in  the  intensity  of  their  devotional  activities. 
Some  are  deeply  religious  most  of  the  time,  others  are 
intermittently  religious,  and  still  others  are  indifferently 
religious.  It  is  undoubtedly  true,  however,  that,  if  we 
may  assume  the  sense  of  an  average  feeling  in  respect  to 
religion,  the  savage  is  in  the  long  run  rather  more  re- 
ligious than  the  civilized  man,  for  the  former  realizes 
his  greater  dependence  upon  the  attitude  which  the  super- 
natural beings  maintain  toward  him  than  does  the  latter 
who  has  his  sense  of  spiritual  independence  magnified  by 
the  knowledge  of  his  mechanical  powers. 

The  rites  and  forms  of  worship  .of  primitive  man 
often  exhibit  an  elaborate  and  complex  religious  con- 
sciousness. Through  prayers,  through  sacrifices,  through 
emulatory  dances  and  ritualized  ceremonies,  influence  is 
sought  with  the  supernatural  beings.  The  rites  of  wor- 
ship of  primitive  groups  have  often  been  regarded  by 
speculators  as  activities  to  be  classed  in  the  very  lowest 
nascent  stages  of  human  culture.  While  many  of  them 

14 


PRIMITIVE  RELIGIONS 

may  be  simple  and  irrational  in  concept,  historically  they 
must  be  as  ancient  and  in  many  cases  as  much  the  product 
of  specialized  development  as  the  modern  types  of  re- 
ligion. Cannibalism,  for  instance,  might  be  casually 
thought,  at  first  blush,  to  be  a  nascent  activity.  An  in- 
vestigation of  cannibalism  in  the  region  of  fetish  worship 
in  Central  Africa  shows  on  the  contrary  that  this  rite  is 
the  result  of  a  long  process,  its  inception  capable  of  being 
traced  back  through  acts  of  sacrifice  to  a  starting  point 
in  the  concept  of  expiation.  Cannibal  tribes  frequently 
have  derived  their  craving  for  human  flesh  through  an 
earlier  custom  of  eating,  with  ceremonial  motives,  the 
sacrifices  intended  for  deities.  In  some  of  the  most  highly 
developed  ritualistic  regions  of  Africa  such  sacrifices 
consist  of  human  beings.  The  connection  here  is  obvi- 
ous. Sacrifice  in  itself  may  be  in  accord  with  a  deeply 
religious  consciousness  since  it  provides  gifts,  acceptable 
in  proportion  to  their  importance,  to  the  supernatural 
beings.  Cannibalism  then  may  in  some  regions  be  viewed 
as  an  evolved  rite. 

In  the  primitive  world  ceremonies  of  a  religious 
character  play  a  part  in  most  of  the  current  events  of 
life.  Pre-natal  and  birth  rites,  ceremonial  procedures 
at  the  period  of  adolescence,  at  initiation  into  certain 
secret  organizations,  at  the  occasions  of  marriage,  death 
and  burial,  characterize  the  passage  of  life  among  savages 
from  before  the  cradle  until  after  the  grave.  Assuredly 
the  savage  impresses  us  as  an  essentially  very  religious 
creature  in  so  far  as  his  ceremonial  obligations  toward 
the  beings  of  the  supernatural  world  are  concerned.  The 
great  play  of  fancy  in  such  ceremonies,  bringing  into  life 
symbolism  in  art,  music, and  dancing,  overshadows  the 
crudities  of  superstition  and  the  acts  which  would  be  con- 
sidered profane  and  obscene  in  civilized  communities. 

It  is  not  within  the  legitimate  scope  of  this  paper  to 
deal  extensively  with  the  various  theories  of  the  origin  of 

IS 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

religion,  for  although  primitive  religions  may  be  said  to 
be  religions  of  an  early  type,  there  is  nothing  to  warrant 
the  critical  student  in  going  so  far  as  to  fall  into  the 
pitfall  of  assuming  that  even  the  crudest  religions  with 
which  we  are  acquainted  through  ethnology  are  in  any 
sense  near  to  any  truly  original  form  of  religious  life. 
They  are  a  comparatively  late  and  advanced  product  of 
religious  growth,  with  a  complexity  corresponding  to  that 
of  Egyptian,  early  Semitic  or  Indian  religion,  which  is 
developmental  instead  of  primary.  Having  exonerated 
ourselves  then  from  the  thankless  burden  of  dealing  with 
religious  origins,  we  may  relieve  our  minds  by  attempting 
the  legitimate  and  more  profitable  task  of  discussing  the 
leading  concepts  which  characterize  the  religions  of  primi- 
tive tribes,  all  of  whom,  in  this  age  of  the  globe,  have 
ascended  to  their  own  variously  evolved  states  of  being. 

ANIMISM 

If  any  one  concept  could  be  regarded  as  fundamental 
to  both  primitive  belief  and  religious  practice  it  would 
seem  to  be  that  of  animism.  Animism  is  perhaps  the  most 
elementary  and  universal  concept  in  primitive  religious 
life.  The  term,  while  it  does  not  necessarily  define  primi- 
tive religion  in  general,  does  at  least  temporarily  char- 
acterize it.  It  is,  as  Tylor  asserted  many  years  ago,2  the 
groundwork  of  the  philosophy  of  religion  from  that  of 
savages  up  to  that  of  civilized  man.  The  doctrine  of 
animism  as  a  concept  of  spirits  may,  to  be  sure,  afford 
only  a  bare  and  meagre  definition  of  religion  at  its  mini- 
mum, but  where  the  root  is  the  branches  will  generally 
be  produced.  Tylor  defines  animism  as  including  the 
belief  in  souls  and  in  a  future  state,  in  controlling  deities 
and  subordinate  spirits ;  these  doctrines  practically  result- 
ing in  some  kind  of  active  worship. 

fE.  B.  Tylor  Primitive  Culture,  London  (1903)  vol.  I. 

16 


PRIMITIVE  RELIGIONS 

Tylor  and  Jevons  derived  the  animistic  concept  from 
the  transitional  character  of  beliefs  regarding  the  soul 
(made  conscious  to  the  primitive  mind  through  dreams), 
and  those  concerning  supernatural  spirits.  The  doctrine 
is  based  upon  an  assumption  of  primitive  man's  inability 
to  distinguish  the  animate  from  the  inanimate.  Spencer 
modifies  Tylor's  original  concept  by  denying  the  latter 
assumption,  showing,  by  certain  examples,  that  since 
animals  can  distinguish  the  animate  from  the  inanimate 
it  is  an  injustice  to  attribute  a  lower  stage  of  discriminat- 
ing intelligence  to  man.  Durkheim  again  treats  animism 
critically  and  recasts  Tylor's  and  Spencer's  later  views  by 
creating  two  categories  of  thought,  naturism,  which  "  ad- 
dresses itself  to  the  phenomena  of  nature,  either  the  great 
cosmic  forces,  such  as  winds,  rivers,  stars  or  the  sky, 
etc.,  or  else  the  objects  of  various  sorts  which  cover  the 
surface  of  the  earth,  such  as  plants,  animals,  rocks,  etc.," 
and  animism,  "  which  has  spiritual  beings  as  its  object, 
spirits,  souls,  geniuses,  demons,  divinities,  properly  so- 
called,  animated  and  conscious  agents  like  men  .  ...  . 
ordinarily  not  visible  to  human  eyes."  For  some  thinkers 
animism  is  the  earlier  phase  of  thought,  naturism  being 
a  derived  secondary  form,  and  for  others  "  the  nature 
cult  was  the  point  of  departure  for  religious  evolution." 
So  it  appears,  in  regard  to  animism  itself,  as  elementary 
and  fundamental  as  the  concept  is  as  an  original  starting 
point  for  religious  thought,  that  the  several  points  of 
view  concerning  both  its  definition  and  its  place  in  re- 
ligious growth  render  the  position  of  one  who  attempts  to 
deal  dogmatically  with  the  animistic  doctrine  open  to  criti- 
cism until  the  contested  questions  have  been  settled. 

Later  researches,  however,  show  animism  to  be  more 
than  the  older  conception  embraced,  that  it  is  based  on  the 
concept  of  magical  power  believed  to  be  inherent  in  the 
phenomena  of  nature  whether  animate  or  inanimate.  A 
more  recent  characterization  of  animism  has  been  given 
2  17 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

by  Doctor  Boas.  He  says :  3  <l  The  fundamental  concept 
bearing  on  the  religious  life  of  the  individual  is  the  belief 
in  the  existence  of  magic  power,  which  may  .influence  the 
life  of  man  and  which  in  turn  might  be  influenced  by 
human  activity.  In  this  sense  magic  power  must  be  under- 
stood as  the  wonderful  qualities  which  are  believed  to 
exist  in  objects,  animals,  men,  spirits  and  deities  and 
which  are  superior  to  the  natural  qualities  of  man.  This 
idea  of  magic  power  is  one  of  the  fundamental  concepts 
which  occur  among  all  Indian  tribes.  It  is  what  is  called 
manito  by  the  Algonquian  tribes ;  wakanda  by  the  Siouan 
tribes,  orenda  by  the  Iroquois."  By  acquiring  varying 
degrees  of  this  supernatural  force  the  various  deities  be- 
lieved in  by  the  American  Indians  are  thought  to  derive 
their  power.  Objects  in  nature  which  are  conceived  also 
to  be  imbued  with  some  of  this  spiritual  force  also  come 
to  be  classified,  by  the  same  means,  as  incipient  deities. 
This  stage,  called  the  pre-animistic  stage,  in  which  rites 
are  addressed  to  impersonal  forces  has  been  classed  by 
some  religious  theorists  as  one  of  the  earliest  phases  of 
human  religion.  Human  beings  who  through  the  pos- 
session of  magic  power  become  able  to  impress  their 
fellows  with  their  ability  to  work  miracles  in  healing  dis- 
ease or  in  controlling  the  action  of  spirits  are  likewise 
regarded  as  possessing  some  of  this  supernatural  fotceT 
Hence,  we  find  in  all  primitive  groups  individuals  to 
whom  are  attributed  supernatural  powers  who  are  known 
as  medicine  men,  magicians,  witch-doctors  or,  more  tech- 
nically, as  Shamans.  Shamanism  then  may  be  said  to 
be  a  practise  based  on  the  use  of  supernatural  force. 

TOTEMISM 

Totemism  has,  like  animism,  figured  prominently  in 
the  classification  of  elementary  religious  concepts.     A 

1  Article  'Religion/  Handbook  of  The  American  Indians,  Bulle- 
tin 30,  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology. 

18 


PRIMITIVE  RELIGIONS 

better  understanding  of  the  great  diversity  of  totemic 
phenomena  in  various  parts  of  the  world  has  left  students 
today  in  a  more  critical  frame  of  mind,  with  a  less  definite 
feeling  as  to  what  totemism  really  is  than  they  had  a 
decade  ago.  Tylor,  Morgan,  Hill-Tout,  Robertson  Smith, 
Haddon,  Frazer,  Lang,  McLennan  and  Durkheim  have 
within  the  last  thirty  years  elaborated  various  explanatory 
theories  which,  on  account  of  their  attempted  universal 
application,  have  been  superseded  in  more  recent  years  by 
those  of  Boas,  Goldenweiser,  Rivers,  and  other  philoso- 
phers whose  method  has  been  more  inductive. 

Goldenweiser,  allowing  for  the  cases,  which  are  en- 
countered frequently,  where  the  religious  side  of  the  to- 
temic complex  is  nothing,  ventures  the  definition:  "  To- 
temism is  the  tendency  of  definite  social  units  (bound 
together  through  descent)  to  become  associated  with 
objects  and  symbols  of  emotional  value."  4 

Totemism  implies  the  association  of  so  many  cultural 
traits  which  are  not  strictly  concerned  with  religion  that 
it  never  embraces  the  whole  of  religion,  even  when,  as  in 
the  case  of  Polynesia,  it  has  developed  into  a  type  of  re- 
ligion. For  instance,  in  various  regions  of  the  globe  we 
find  the  concept  more  characteristically  based  on  the 
association  of  social  units  with  belief  in  descent,  taboo, 
dramatization  of  myths,  ceremonies  to  multiply  the  to- 
temic animal,  with  prerogatives  in  the  ownership  of 
myths,  songs,  dances,  family  crests,  and  the  like.  Most 
commonly  associated  with  totemism,  however,  is  exogamy. 
This  is  the  prohibition  of  marriage  within  certain  social 
divisions  whose  members  regard  themselves  as  relatives 
through  maternal  or  paternal  descent,  as  the  case  may  be, 
from  a  common  ancestor  generally  of  the  animal  or  plant 
kingdom.  The  explanation  of  this  identity  of  social 
group  and  animal  has  been  attempted  by  theorists  in 

4  A.  A.  Goldenweiser,  'Totemism,  an  Analytical  Study/  Journal 
of  'American  Folk-Lore,  vol.  23,  No.  88  (1916),  p.  275. 

19 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

several  ways.  For  instance,  Haddon  believed  that  totem- 
isni  originated  from  the  idea  that  groups  of  people 
developed  out  of  an  earlier  stage  of  their  life  when  cer- 
tain animals  were  hunted  for  food,  into  an  attitude  of 
reverence  toward  the  creature  and  so  came  to  abstain  from 
killing  or  eating  it.  Frazer  in  a  later  work  suggested 
that  the  institution  originated  in  an  economic  arrange- 
ment by  which  the  various  clans  contributed  to  each 
other's  support  by  refraining  from  killing  certain  animals 
in  order  to  multiply  each  other's  game  supply,  and  con- 
sequently developing  a  certain  religious  attitude  toward 
the  animal  so  protected.  And  there  are  other  theories. 

The  concept  is  much  too  varied  to  accept  any  of  these 
theories,  none  of  which  reconstructs  any  absolutely  satis- 
factory universal  theory  of  origin.  The  best  recent 
authorities  show  that  totemism  must  have  started  from 
many  different  origins  in  different  regions  and  developed 
certain  comparable  characteristics  through  a  process  of 
convergence.  It  would  be  unwise,  even  if  it  were  possible 
in  this  paper,  to  discuss  further  the  question  of  the  origin 
of  totemism,  and  it  seems  inadvisable  to  prolong  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  religious  side  of  so  complex  and  subjective 
a  concept. 

FETISHISM 

The  belief  that  all  things  in  Nature  are  animate  and 
that  they  possess  volition,  immortality  and  other  mysteri- 
ous attributes  has  developed  in  the  mind  of  primitive 
man  an  attitude  of  reverence  and  worship  which  students 
of  religion  denote  by  the  term  fetishism,  a  derivative  from 
the  Portuguese  feitigo,  a  charm,  sorcery.  Fetishism  is 
the  doctrine  that  objects,  either  natural  or  artificial, 
possess  an  essential  magical  power  which  converts  them 
into  creatures  capable  of  responding  to  acts  of  influence 
such  as  invocation,  sacrifice,  flattery,  bribery,  supplica- 
tion, imitative  magic  and  the  like.  Accordingly,  various 
objects  in  Nature,  which  appeal  to  the  imagination  of 

20 


PRIMITIVE  RELIGIONS 

superstitious  human  beings  either  by  their  curious  appear- 
ance, it  may  be  through  dreams  or  visions,  or  through 
supposedly  supernatural  associations,  become  regarded 
as  abodes  of  such  animcc.  Such  objects  are  cherished  as 
material  helpers,  guides  or  protectors,  or  are  held  in 
fear  as  malevolent  forces  which  have  to  be  appeased  by 
the  various  means  of  cajolery  which  man  since  time  im- 
memorial has  known  and  practiced  to  deceive  supernatural 
beings  in  his  own  favor.  Fetishes  may  be  acquired  by 
individuals,  by  groups,  or  by  nations  for  the  promotion 
of  their  welfare.  Fetishes  may  be  small  portable  objects 
of  every  imaginable  sort,  or  they  may  occur  as  artificial 
objects  made  with  every  device  of  ingenuity  and  art  that 
man  is  capable  of  employing.  In  the  former  class  we 
learn  of  such  fetishes  as  bones,  stones,  fossils,  feathers, 
sticks  plain  or  decorated,  hair,  roots,  berries,  seeds,  parts 
of  animals  and  human  beings,  in  fact  anything,  no  matter 
how  insignificant  in  itself,  which  has  in  the  owner's  mind 
at  least  some  symbolic  connection  with  occult  power. 
Such  minor  fetishes  are  frequently  known  as  charms, 
amulets,  talismans,  and  luck-pieces.  And  indeed  we  of 
to-day  have  not  entirely  outgrown  their  use.  Fetishes 
are  often  large  and  elaborate  artifacts,  representations  or 
images  which  have  become  generally  known  as  idols.  The 
phenomenon  of  idolatry  or  image  worship  is  thus  a  close 
associate  of  fetishism  and  so,  also,  is  sacrifice.  Africa  is 
generally  regarded  as  the  region  of  the  globe  where  fetish- 
ism has  been  most  elaborately  developed.  Here  it  consti- 
tutes the  greater  part  of  religion,  its  devotees  being  or- 
ganized into  many  fetish  cults  whose  power  is  o-ften  of 
a  political  as  well  as  of  a  religious  nature.5 

TABOO 

Another  manifestation  of  the  primitive  religious  com- 
plex is  taboo,  a  word  of  Polynesian  origin.    The  term  is 
e  R.  H.  Nassau,  Fetichism  in  West  Africa,  N.  Y.,  1904. 

21 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

applied  to  an  interdiction  belonging  to  or  placed  upon  a 
person,  place,  day,  name,  act,  thought  or  any  conceivable 
thing  and  idea  which  is  thereby  rendered  sacred.  In  the 
case  of  objects,  communication  with  the  tabooed  thing 
is  forbidden  under  ordinary  circumstances  to  all  except  a 
few  persons  having  special  privileges.  Taboo  may  have 
a  negative  and  a  positive  side ;  the  former,  denoting  re- 
ligious prohibition,  is  the  more  conspicuous  in  primitive 
life.  In  either  aspect  the  term  may  be  applied  to  definite 
periods  of  the  life  of  the  individual  in  connection  with 
important  events.  It  operates  by  governing  the  regula- 
tions observed  by  boys  and  girls  at  puberty;  by  parents 
before  and  after  the  birth  of  a  child  (couvade) ;  by  rela- 
tives after  the  decease  of  a  person ;  by  hunters  and  fisher- 
men in  their  occupations;  by  shamans,  doctors,  or  magi- 
cians desiring  power  to  cure  the  sick,  to  prophesy  or  to 
conjure;  and  by  novices  about  to  enter  secret  societies. 
Such  are  only  a  few  of  the  instances  where  taboo  operates. 
The  typical  negative  prohibitions  which  every  student  first 
associates  with  the  taboo  proper,  however,  consist  in 
abstinence  from  hunting,  fishing,  war,  women,  sleep,  cer- 
tain kinds  of  work,  and  so  forth,  but  especially  in 
refraining  from  eating  certain  foods.  The  latter  prohibi- 
tion may  be  applied  permanently  in  the  life  of  an  indi- 
vidual or  a  group  in  regard  to  the  totemic  animal,  and  it 
often  applies  similarly  to  the  killing  of  certain  animals. 
In  primitive  society  the  taboo  of  name  mention  and  the 
taboo  of  intercourse  are  very  common.  The  prohibition 
frequently  covers  the  mention  of  the  name  of  the  dead, 
the  mention  of  one's  own  name,  the  right  of  addressing 
the  mother-in-law  directly  or  vice  versa,  and  the  pro- 
hibition of  intercourse  between  fathers-in-law  and  daugh- 
ters-in-law as  well. 

Thus  it  may  be  seen  that  taboo  is  an  important  aspect 
of  the  phenomena  of  religion,  influencing  primitive  ethi- 
cal and  social  behaviour  in  general  to  an  extent  that  makes 

22 


PRIMITIVE  RELIGIONS 

it  in  some  regions  as  broad  a  concept  as  that  of  religion 
itself.  In  Polynesia,  particularly,  the  taboo  was  largely 
a  method  of  government  and  the  fear  of  retribution  from 
supernatural  sources  was  the  direct  cause  of  obedience 
to  it. 

PRIMITIVE  ETHICS 

Thus  far  in  our  discussion  it  must  have  been  apparent 
to  all  that  the  question  of  the  moral  influence  of  religion 
upon  primitive  life  has  been  left  unmentioned.  The  rea- 
son for  this  is  that  we  are  dealing  with  primitive,  not 
with  civilized  religions.  The  ethical  characteristics  of 
primitive  man's  religion  are  indeed  as  diverse  in  their 
types  as  are  the  ethnical  types  themselves.  If,  however, 
we  separate,  by  a  somewhat  arbitrary  line  of  division,  the 
sphere  of  primitive  life  from  that  of  civilized  life,  we 
find  that  in  the  primitive  world  relationship  with  the  su- 
pernatural beings  does  not  seem  to  involve  the  considera- 
tion of  morals  in  the  least.  In  the  religious  systems 
prevailing  throughout  primitive  America,  Asia,  Africa, 
and  Australia  there  occur  very  few  signs  to  indicate  a 
belief  in  retribution  during  the  soul's  future  life,  for 
the  deeds  done  in  this  life.  As  ubiquitous  as  the  belief 
in  a  heaven  of  some  sort  may  be  in  the  primitive  world  at 
large,  the  absence  of  the  concept  of  reward  and  punish- 
ment for  behavior  during  life  leaves  the  matter  of  ethical 
control  entirely  outside  the  pale  of  religion.  Custom  is 
thus  left  to  control  community  as  well  as  individual  be- 
havior. One  could  indeed  define  most  primitive  types 
of  religion  as  being  ceremonial  systems  of  non-ethical 
philosophy  and  worship.  This  is  a  very  thorough-going 
differential  feature.  It  throws  into  glaring  contrast  the 
primitive  as  against  the  more  advanced  Messianic  types 
of  religion,  and  again  leaves  us  to  struggle  with  a  theory 
as  to  whether  the  Messiah  concept  would  have  been  pro- 
duced independently  by  a  process  of  gradual  thought  evo- 

23 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

lution  or  whether  it  is  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  hypoth- 
esis of  supernatural  revelation. 

We  do  indeed  find  instances  in  the  primitive  world 
of  the  concept  of  sin,  but  sin  is  in  such  cases  merely  the 
violation  of  a  taboo  or  an  arbitrary  custom,  finding  its 
settlement  in  an  immediate  reaction  by  the  community 
or  by  the  performance  of  a  ceremony  of  expiation  in- 
tended to  placate  the  supernatural  force  which  has  been 
offended.  It  is  only  among  the  Eskimo  that  any  cere- 
monial atonement  comparable  to  that  of  modern  religions 
is  required  for  a  sin,  and  atonement  there  curiously 
enough  is  obtained  by  confession  addressed  to  an  anthro- 
pomorphic goddess,  the  Mistress  of  the  Sea  Mammals. 
In  the  case  of  these  people  there  exist  a  number  of  arbi- 
trary restrictions  the  transgression  and  subsequent  con- 
cealment of  which  constitute  sin.  Such  restrictions  con- 
cern food  and  work.  It  is,  for  example,  a  transgression 
to  perform  certain  work  after  a  seal  has  been  killed,  or 
after  a  death  has  occurred;  no  work  on  caribou  skin  is 
allowed  until  sea  ice  has  formed,  and  none  on  seal  skins 
after  the  sea  ice  has  commenced  to  melt.  An  elaborate 
code  of  social  punishment  also  exists  in  primitive  Africa 
where  a  highly  organized  system  of  legislation  is,  and 
has  been  for  ages,  in  operation,  though  as  a  social-eco- 
nomic not  a  religious  element  of  culture.  Here  again  is 
something  of  a  paradox  in  the  fact  that  the  savage  is  a 
creature  of  social  self-control  more  strictly  than  is  the 
civilized  man  who  requires  belief  in  a  religious  code 
threatening  eternal  punishment  or  reward  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  his  good  behavior. 

There  remains,  accordingly,  the  impression  in  the  mind 
of  every  thinker  who  studies  the  relationship  between 
ethics  and  religion,  that  a  tremendous  gap  lies  between 
the  primitive  and  the  modern  types  of  religion.  Even 
allowing  for  great  diversities  in  primitive  tribal  religions 
it  may  be  generally  asserted  as  true  that  the  primitive 

24 


PRIMITIVE  RELIGIONS 

types  are  characteristically  not  ethical,  since  their  systems 
do  not  embody  ethical  codes.  Apparently  this  is  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  savage's  conception  of  the  superior  beings 
rates  them  as  too  important,  too  egoistic  to  be  concerned 
at  all  with  what  good  or  bad  men  may  do  to  each  other. 
This  lack  of  association  between  religion  and  the  control 
of  behavior  in  life  is  so  marked  that  we  may  generally 
regard  the  gap  as  the  dividing  line  between  the  primitive 
and  the  advanced.  Classifying  the  primitive  types  as  non- 
ethical,  non-retributive  systems  of  philosophy  we  might 
attempt  to  account  for  the  reason  why  the  modern  creeds 
instigated  by  Messianic  personages,  such  as  Moses,  Christ, 
Mohammed  or  Buddha,  bring  the  doctrines  of  religion  to 
bear  upon  life  as  a  moral  power.  Coordinating  results 
in  these  speculations,  it  would  seem  that  where  primitive 
religions  are  strictly  non-ethical  the  Messiah  concept  is 
also  lacking.  Should  one  attempt  to  claim  that  the  cul- 
ture hero  or  transformer  might  in  the  process  of  time 
have  developed  into  a  Messiah-personage,  he  would  have 
to  confront  the  difficulty  of  explaining  why  field  investi- 
gations among  savages  have  failed  to  disclose  evidences 
to  show  where  culture  heroes,  shamans  or  semi-super- 
natural figures  have  metamorphosed  directly  into 
such  Messiah-personages.  The  chief  function  of  the 
Messiah  being,  as  we  have  seen,  to  preach  the  doc-i 
trine  of  ethics  as  a  part  of  religion,  we  cannot  point 
to  cases  where  a  culture  hero  or  mythical  trans- 
former does  appear  in  any  such  capacity.  The  prob- 
lem still  remains,  however,  whether  or  not  this  con- 
clusion may  be  due  to  lack  of  information  from  certain 
regions  of  the  primitive  world  and  whether  future  re- 
search will  bring  forth  material  showing  how  the  primi- 
tive concept  could  develop  into  the  concept  of  a  Messiah. 
We  must  be  content  as  yet  with  investigating  the  field 
to  secure  material  covering  the  gaps  of  our  knowledge 

25 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

before  we  can  hope  to  draw  safe  conclusions  on  a  problem 
so  greatly  involving  the  comprehension  of  primitive 
man's  history,  as  well  as  an  understanding  of  his  mind. 

THE    CULTURE    HERO 

The  culture  hero  or  transformer  concept,  which  has 
already  been  frequently  mentioned,  is  another  concept 
as  fundamental  in  the  primitive  world  as  that  of  animism. 
Particularly  in  America,  where  we  have  critical  and 
abundant  material  collected  from  many  regions,  can  the 
culture  hero  character  be  studied  with  advantage,  so  we 
shall  use  this  field  for  drawing  some  concrete  illustra- 
tions. The  story  of  the  so-called  culture  hero  who  gave 
the  world  its  present  shape,  killing  obnoxious  monsters, 
giving  man  the  arts  and  industries  of  his  culture,  is  one 
of  the  most  widely  distributed  myth-cycles  on  the  conti- 
nent. The  culture  hero  or  transformer,  if  we  choose 
to  call  him  such,  appears  first  in  a  period  when  men  are 
not  differentiated  from  animals.  With  the  appearance 
of  the  hero  a  new  historic  era  is  ushered  in  and  we  have 
the  story  of  how  men  are  given  their  culture  and  sepa- 
rated from  their  animal  kindred.  The  transformer  teaches 
men  how  to  kill  animals,  to  make  fire  and  to  clothe  them- 
selves, posing  as  a  benevolent  helper  of  mankind.  But 
the  same  culture  hero  often  appears  in  other  groups  of 
tales  as  a  sly,  low-principled  trickster,  even  a  marplot 
who  vaingloriously  thinks  himself  superior  to  all  other 
beings  whom  he  tries  to  deceive.  Again,  in  the  words 
of  Boas,6  "  he  appears  as  the  victim  of  his  own  wiles  who 
is  often  punished  for  his  malevolence  by  the  superiority 
of  his  intended  victims.  No  method  of  warfare  is  too 
mean  for  him.  No  trick  is  too  low  to  be  resorted  to  pro- 
vided it  helps  him  to  reach  his  selfish  end.  Often  the 
end  sought  for  is  entirely  unworthy  of  the  hero  who 

'Introduction  to  "Traditions  of  the  Thompson  River  Indians," 
James  Teit,  Memoirs  of  the  American  Folk-Lore  Society. 

26 


PRIMITIVE  RELIGIONS 

shows  such  lofty  altruism  at  other  times  in  his  career, 
for  his  chief  aim  in  his  baser  moods  is  the  acquisition 
of  riches  and  women." 

It  seems  difficult  to  harmonize  two  such  different 
aspects  of  the  culture  hero  myth.  Some  investigators 
have  tried  to  show  that  a  gradual  deterioration  from  a 
purer,  earlier  form  of  the  myth  explains  how  the  more 
vulgar  tales  come  in  as  additions  to  the  old  cycle  of  myths. 
An  explanation,  however,  which  does  not  necessarily  in- 
volve the  idea  of  literary  degeneration  would  seem  to  be 
natural,  an  explanation  by  which  the  speculator  would  ac- 
count for  the  dual  aspect  of  the  culture  hero  concept  by 
some  process  of  evolution.  To  my  mind  we  may  seek 
for  such  an  explanation  by  regarding  the  base  and  vulgar 
aspects  of  the  culture-hero  stories  as  accretions  which 
have  grown  up  around  the  central  figure  of  mythology, 
like  stories  clustering  around  a  point  of  attraction.  In 
many  of  the  tales  where  the  culture  hero  frames  his 
actions  for  the  benefit  of  mankind  he  is  not  prompted  by 
altruistic  motives  but  only  by  the  desire  to  satisfy  his 
own  needs.  Nevertheless,  these  tales  are  often  inter- 
preted as  indications  of  an  altruistic  intention  on  the  part 
of  the  hero.  The  latter  attitude,  however,  does  not 
obscure  the  purely  egotistical  motives  which  the  hero 
possesses,  because  many  of  the  changes  which  he  accom- 
plishes for  the  benefit  of  mankind  are  only  incidentally 
beneficial.  The  less  the  altruistic  idea  is  developed  the 
less  will  be  the  consciousness  of  a  discrepancy  between 
the  tales  representing  the  transformer  as  a  benefactor  and 
as  a  trickster.  The  higher  it  is  developed  the  greater 
will  be  the  discrepancy  between  these  two  groups  of  tales. 
Accordingly,  we  find  that  where  the  altruistic  idea  is 
emphasized  the  tales  of  the  trickster  are  separated  from 
the  transformer  tales  and  ascribed  to  another  secondary 
hero.  The  personage  of  the  hero  character  is  then  split 
into  several  parts,  the  one  representing  the  high-principled 

27 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

hero,  the  other  retaining  the  basic  features  of  the  trick- 
ster cycle.  The  higher  the  civilization  of  the  tribe,  natu- 
rally the  sharper  the  line  seems  to  be  drawn  between  the 
culture  hero  and  the  trickster. 

Since  there  is  a  certain  advantage  in  being  able  to 
refer  to  a  specific  case  on  this  point,  I  should  like  to  sum- 
marize from  material  gathered  by  myself,  with  which  I 
am  consequently  more  familiar,  namely,  the  character- 
istics of  the  culture-hero  tale  as  it  is  related  by  one  of 
the  tribes  of  the  lower  St.  Lawrence  region,  the  Penob- 
scot  Indians  of  northern  Maine.7  Bearing  upon  the  dis- 
cussion just  presented  the  points  to  be  noted  here  are, 
the  commingling  of  altruism  with  selfishness,  and  secondly 
the  importance  of  mere  accident  in  determining  the  char- 
acter of  transformations  in  nature.  To  the  Penobscot 
mind,  it  would  seem,  the  incongruity  of  the  various  parts 
of  the  transformer  myth  has  not  been  very  striking, 
although  there  is  a  tendency  manifested  in  this  direction, 
in  the  separation  of  the  myths  into  a  primary  and  a 
secondary,  profane,  group  by  the  native  narrators. 

The  culture  hero,  in  the  tales  of  the  tribes  of  this 
region,  bears  the  name  of  Gluskdbe  which,  literally  trans- 
lated, means  'The  Man  of  Deceit/  '  The  Liar/  The 
term,  however,  is  not  applied  in  a  derogatory  sense  for 
it  implies  '  one  who  overcomes  his  opponents  by  strategy.' 
The  sections  following  under  separate  numbers  are  ab- 
stracts of  independent  recitations  in  the  order  as  given, 
forming  the  culture-hero  cycle  of  myths. 

SUMMARY  OF  THE  PENOBSCOT  VERSION  OF  THE  CUL- 
TURE-HERO (GLUSKABE)  CYCLE. 
i.  Gluskabe's  Childhood.    He  lives  with  grandmother, 
Woodchuck.    He  develops  into  a  prodigious  hunter  as  a 

/The  summary  presented  here  is  arranged  from  part  of  a  col- 
lection of  phonetically  recorded  texts  with  translations   submitted 
*"'  the  writer  several  years  ago  to  the  Anthropological  Division  of 
e  Geological  Survey  of  Canada. 


PRIMITIVE  RELIGIONS 

child.     His  grandmother  prophesies  a  great  future  for 
him  as  the  benefactor  of  posterity. 

2.  Gluskabe  deceives  the  Game  Animals.    He  induces 
them  to  enter  his  game  bag  by  lying  to  them,  prophesying 
the  end  of  the  world.     His  grandmother  disapproves. 
Gluskabe  releases  the  animals  from  the  game  close. 

3.  Gluskabe  traps  all  the  fish  by  a  similar  hoax.    His 
grandmother  reprimands  him,  and  Gluskabe  releases  the 
fish. 

4.  Gluskabe  employs  a  stone  canoe.     He  seeks  the 
home  of  the  Wind  Bird.     His  hair  is  blown  off  by  the 
force  of  the  wind.     He  deceives  the  Wind  Bird,  and 
cripples  him.     The  waters  then  become  too  calm,  Glus- 
kabe is  obliged  to  cure  and  restore  Wind  Bird,  who 
properly  regulates  the  winds  of  the  world  thereafter. 

5.  Gluskabe  seeks  Grasshopper,  the  retainer  of  the 
world's  tobacco.     He  steals  his  tobacco  and  seeds,  be- 
stows it  abroad  for  mankind,  and  punishes  Grasshopper 
by  giving  him  only  a  temporary  supply. 

6.  Gluskabe  travels  among  the  lakes  and  rivers  of  the 
north,  reducing  their  dangers  for  the  safety  of  posterity. 

7.  Gluskabe  discovers  people  suffering  from  thirst. 
He   seeks   the   monster   Aglebemu   who   withholds   the 
world's  water,  and  kills  him.     Then  from  the  released 
water  originates  the   Penobscot  River,   and   the  dying 
people,  plunging  into  the  flood,   are  transformed   into 
various  fish  and  amphibians.     From  these  originate  the 
present  day  family  totemic  groups. 

8.  Gluskabe    pursues    a    monster    cannibal    moose. 
Squatty-woman    (Pukdjinskwess)    attempts    to    hinder 
him.     He  escapes  her.     Their  snowshoe  footprints  be- 
come imprinted  in  the  rock.     Gluskabe  kills  the  moose. 
He  transforms  the  moose's  intestines,  and  his  own  dog 
into  stone,  and  also  his  kettle,  which  is  now  Mt.  Kineo. 

9.  Gluskabe  goes  in  search  of  the  Winter  Deity.    He 
is  overcome  and  frozen  by  Winter. 

29 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

10.  Gluskabe's  grandmother,  during  his  absence,  is 
plagued  by  Foxes.    Gluskabe  returns,  and  punishes  them. 

11.  Gluskabe  seeks  the  source  of  Summer.     He  hides 
his  eye  leaving  it  in  the  care  of  the  Chickadee.     He 
encounters  his  father  and  his  malevolent  brothers.     He 
undergoes  a  smoking  test,  and  a  gaming  test,  and  wins 
both. 

12.  Gluskabe  approaches  the  dancers  whd  guard  the 
Summer  Fluid.    He  transforms  two  girls  into  toads.    He 
steals  the  Summer  Fluid,  and  escapes  his  pursuers  by  a 
ruse.     He  recovers  an  eye  from  Owl,  who  has  stolen 
his.    He  then  proceeds  to  the  home  of  the  Winter  Deity 
with  the  Summer  Fluid,  and  overcomes  him  by  the  heat. 

13.  Gluskabe  finishes  his  earthly  mission.     With  his 
grandmother  he  departs  to  the  immortal  realm  where  they 
work,  preparing  weapons  for  the  future  world  war,  to 
aid  posterity. 

The  following  three  episodes  are  told  in  detached 
form  as  supplements  to  the  story  of  the  hero's  career. 
They  are  correctly  felt,  in  the  minds  of  the  native  myth 
narrators,  to  be  incongruous  with  the  character  of  the 
main  transformer  episodes. 

14.  Gluskabe  fails  to  stop  a  Baby  crying.    He  is  de- 
feated by  the  Baby  in  a  filth-eating  contest. 

15.  Gluskabe  aids  his  uncle  Turtle  to  secure  women. 
Turtle  projects  part  of  himself  beneath  the  river:   this 
portion  is  swallowed  by  a  fish.    Gluskabe  recovers  it  for 
him. 

1 6.  Gluskabe  aids  Turtle  to  marry  the  daughter  of 
Kellu,  a  bird  chief.    At  the  wedding- feast  Turtle  violates 
Gluskabe's  rules  and  is  scorched  in  the  fire,  whence  origi- 
nates the  Turtle's  shell.    Turtle  tries  vengeance  on  Glus- 
kabe.    Gluskabe  in  payment  causes  Turtle  to  stab  him- 
self. 

It  seems  advisable,  in  connection  with  tales  like  the 
preceding,  since  the  question  often  arises  among  students 

30 


PRIMITIVE  RELIGIONS 

of  primitive  religion,  to  mention  a  common  fallacy  which 
has  come  into  vogue  in  literature  concerning  the  supposed 
belief  of  an  anthropomorphic  supreme  deity  among  the 
American  Indians.  The  Indians  are  often  cited  as  illus- 
trating the  case  of  a  primitive  people  paying  reverence 
to  a  Great  Spirit  as  a  creator  and  controller  of  the  world. 
No  such  monotheistic  concept,  however,  does  exist  in 
aboriginal  Indian  religious  beliefs  in  general,  until  the 
concept  has  been  taught  the  natives  by  the  missionaries. 
The  zeal  of  the  latter  has  often  led  them  to  "  read  in  " 
their  own  ideas  into  their  records,  with  the  result  that  the 
great  supernatural  force,  and  oftentimes  the  mythical  cul- 
ture-hero figures,  like  the  one  just  dealt  with,  have  been 
misconstrued  through  the  bias  of  the  investigator.  We 
should  not  overlook  the  fact,  however,  that  the  missionaries 
have  correctly  understood  the  situation  when  they  have 
claimed  that  the  primitive  Americans  possessed  a  conscious- 
ness of  the  life  after  death.  The  soul  of  the  individual,  in 
American  mythology,  is  generally  supposed  to  travel  to  a 
spirit  land  resembling  ours.  The  journey  thither  is  be- 
lieved to  be  beset  with  many  lurking  dangers  to  be  over- 
come by  the  soul.  In  some  mythologies  a  slippery  log 
has  to  be  crossed,  in  others  terrific  precipices  must  be 
skirted,  while  in  others  we  learn  of  colliding  clouds 
which  are  to  be  avoided.  The  success  of  the  soul  in  this 
journey  depends  largely  upon  good  fortune,  sometimes 
upon  the  strength  of  experience  gained  by  having  led  a 
respectable  life  on  earth,  and  sometimes  upon  the  per- 
formance of  mortuary  rites  by  the  surviving  relatives. 
As  describing  the  realm  of  departed  spirits,  the  term 
"  Happy  Hunting  Ground  "  seems  to  have  been  fairly  well 
chosen.  Life  there  is  believed  to  be  one  of  happiness  and 
repletion. 

The  treatment  of  so  complex  a  realm  of  thought  has 
really  no  natural  ending,  as  the  student  will  learn  for 

31 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

himself  if  he  undertakes  to  penetrate  the  literature  of  it. 
An  arbitrary  ending  has  to  be  made  somewhere.  There 
is,  moreover,  no  single  textbook  to  be  used  with  implicit 
confidence  as  a  guide.  So  until  the  time  comes  when 
scholars  in  the  field  of  primitive  religions,  through  inten- 
sive methods  similar  to  those  employed  in  classical  and 
Semitic  research,  produce  an  adequate  text  and  reference 
work,  the  few  who  stand  before  the  panorama  of  the 
savage  world  can,  I  fear,  do  little  more  than  surrender 
to  the  spectacle  of  its  possibilities. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  beginner  in  this  subject  is  recommended  to  consult  W.  I. 
Thomas,  Source  Book  for  Social  Origins  (University  of  Chicago 
Press),  Part  VI  (Magic,  Religion,  Myth).  An  extensive  bibliog- 
raphy of  primitive  religions  is  given  here.  E,  B.  Tylor,  Primitive 
Culture,  Vol.  2,  is  valuable  for  general  material  and  E.  Durkheim, 
The  Elementary  Forms  of  the  Religious  Life,  translated  from  the 
French  by  J.  W.  Swain,  is  useful  for  the  more  theoretical  treatment 
of  the  whole  field. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  EGYPTIAN  RELIGION 

BY  W.  MAX  MULLER 

MANY  of  my  readers  will  feel  that  it  means  an  in- 
justice to  the  ancient  Egyptians,  the  bearers  of  the  highest 
civilization  of  the  ancient  Orient,  to  introduce  their  re- 
ligion directly  after  the  sketch  of  the  religious  thinking 
of  primitive  peoples.  I  am  sorry  to  confess  that  I  cannot 
join  any  protest  of  these  admirers  of  ancient  Egypt. 
While  I  gladly  agree  with  them  in  praising  highly  the  art, 
the  literature,  the  architecture,  and  many  other  achieve- 
ments of  this  remarkable  nation,  I  must  state  that  the 
popular  overestimation  of  its  "  religious  wisdom"  is  a 
great  error.  Certainly  its  religious  thought  is  extremely 
interesting  to  students  of  the  history  of  religion,  who  may 
see  in  it  even  the  most  precious  bequest  of  ancient  Egypt 
to  modern  science. 

This  valuation  rests,  however,  not  on  its  philosophical 
depths,  as  so  many  admirers  of  Egypt  think,  but  on  the 
extremely  primitive  character  of  that  ancient  religion 
which  makes  it  an  inestimable  source  of  information  for 
the  origin  and  growth  of  religion  in  general.  It  is  an 
interesting  link  between  the  most  rudimentary  state  of 
religious  thinking  and  the  development  reached  by  other 
nations  of  the  ancient  western  Orient.  Whoever  thinks 
that  this  skeptical  valuation  is  incompatible  with  the  high 
civilization  of  Egypt,  may  be  reminded  that  the  religious 
development  of  nations  is  often  quite  incongruous  with 
their  progress  in  other  lines.  Compare  the  low  religious 
development  of  China,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  Israel, 
which  could  boast  only  of  a  very  moderate  and  little 
original  civilization  before  the  dispersion  among  the 
3  33 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

nations,  has  been  the  leader  of  the  whole  world  in  re- 
ligious thought. 

Furthermore,  if  conservatism  is  a  most  important  ele- 
ment in  all  religions,  it  is  nowhere  so  important  as  in 
ancient  Egypt.  Its  creed  is  not  what  the  highly  civilized 
Egyptians  after  3000  B.C.  might  have  thought  out  if  they 
had  been  free  to  think.  It  is  rather  the  bequest  of  their 
barbarous  forefathers  from  fabulously  ancient  periods. 
These  traditions  of  the  ancestors,  who  must  have  lived 
at  the  time  when  the  gods  walked  on  earth  or  who  were 
even  gods  themselves,  seemed  so  venerable  to  later  gener- 
ations that  they  did  not  dare  to  change  them  much.  Thus 
extremely  primitive  ideas  are  draggedalong  to  the  very  end 
of  heathenism  in  Egypt,  exactly  as  the  art  of  the  Nile- 
land  carried  the  fetters  of  tradition  from  the  age  of  the 
earliest,  childish  beginnings,  as  the  official  costume  even 
of  the  latest  Pharaohs  showed  that  it  dated  from  a  time 
when  the  Egyptians  were  more  or  less  completely  naked. 
If  it  seemed  sinful  to  change  such  things,  how  much  more 
necessary  seemed  it  to  the  priests  to  worship  the  same 
gods  and  in  the  same  way  as  the  blessed  forefathers  had 
done,  perhaps  back  to  10,000  B.C.,  a  time  which  the  mod- 
ern archaeologist  must  divest  of  all  romantic  ideas  and 
consider  as  an  age  of  complete  barbarism. 

The  older  school  o-f  Egyptology  was  very  reluctant  to 
admit  this  low  valuation  of  a  religion  which  the  classical 
world  had  viewed  with  so  much  interest  and  respect.  In- 
stead of  recognizing  its  crude  character,  scholars  clung 
to  isolated  statements  of  some  priestly  writers  which 
showed  (or  seemed  to  show)  a  tendency  towards  panthe- 
ism or  even  monotheism.  Emphasizing  and  generalizing 
these  passages,  they  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
Egyptians,  or  at  least  the  earliest  Egyptians,  were  great 
thinkers,  believing  in  a  pantheistic  monotheism  which  they 
only  hid  under  the  symbols  of  polytheism.  That  the  later 
Egyptians,  indeed,  misunderstood  this  symbolism  very 

34 


THE  EGYPTIAN  RELIGION 

much,  some  of  these  apologists  used  to  admit;  above  all 
they  claimed  the  meaning  of  the  sacred  animals  was 
forgotten  in  later  ages  and  those  divine  symbols  were 
misunderstood  as  divine  personalities  in  themselves.  And 
so  they  maintained,  we  must  not  follow  later  misinter- 
pretations of  the  ignorant  masses,  we  must  look  at  the 
pure,  original  creed  as  preserved  in  those  isolatedpassages ; 
if  ever  we  should  find  religious  texts  from  a  sufficiently 
old  time  we  should  find  there  the  pure  solar  or  pantheistic 
monotheism  which  befitted  such  a  high  civilization. 

These  apologetic  theories  had  their  day  as  long  as 
Egyptologists  had  no  fuller  religious  texts  from  the  time 
before  2000  B.C.  They  became  more  and  more  difficult 
when  such  texts  were  found,  revealing  not  a  simpler  re- 
ligion but  all  those  characteristics  which  had  been  excused 
as  later  degenerations.  The  decisive  blow  was  dealt  to 
that  apologetic  school  when  in  the  winter  of  1 880-81 
the  opening  of  the  inscribed  pyramids  of  Dynasties  5 
and  6  furnished  to  scholars  an  immense  mass  of  religious 
texts  engraved  about  2500  B.C.,  but  taken  from  so  much 
older  books  that  even  scholars  of  the  pyramid-age  under- 
stood them  only  imperfectly.  We  may  safely  consider  them 
as  the  representation  of  the  religious  beliefs  of  the  fourth, 
partly,  it  may  be,  even  of  the  fifth  millennium  B.C.  In 
this  rich  material  we  found  nothing  of  monotheism,  but 
we  met  with  all  those  objectionable  sides  of  the  Egyptian 
religion  which  its  apologists  had  tried  to  excuse  as  later 
degenerations.  The  objectionable  worship  of  animals 
proved  to  be  a  very  prominent  part  of  this  earliest  phase 
of  religion,  and  instead  of  finding  a  smaller  and  more  sys- 
tematized number  of  gods,  we  discovered  hundreds  of 
new  deities,  mostly  of  a  very  meaningless  character.  In 
one  word :  the  crude  superstitions  of  the  masses  in  later 
time  have  proved  to  be  the  faithful  survival  of  the  oldest 
religious  traditions,  while  the  few  passages  which  may 
be  adduced  as  a  proof  of  higher  religious  speculations 

35 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

belong  only  to  much  later  periods  and  represent  the  iso- 
lated efforts  of  a  few  thinkers  among  the  most  learned 
priests,  efforts  which  can  less  be  treated  as  the  religion 
of  Egypt  than  the  writings  of  some  radical  philosophers 
of  our  age  may  claim  to  represent  Christianity.  Thus 
the  view  is  winning  more  and  more  ground  that  the  end- 
less, unsystematic  and  confused  polytheism  of  the  earliest 
Egyptians  can  be  understood  only  as  a  development  from 
animism  (as  first  had  been  proposed  by  R.  Pietschmann 
in  1878).  The  difficult  and  obscure  character  of  Egyp- 
tian religion  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  hovered  forever 
between  the  animistic  and  the  cosmic  stage.  Even  in 
prehistoric  time  elements  of  the  latter  development  had 
been  mingled  with  the  more  primitive  traditions,  but 
they  could  never  sufficiently  modify  them.  The  modern 
scholars,  therefore,  found  signs  of  a  cosmic  conception  of 
religion,  but  in  applying  it  to  the  pantheon  it  was  impos- 
sible for  them  to  discover  a  harmonious  cosmic  system. 
And  so  this  transitional  character  of  the  religion  of 
Egypt  is  the  reason  that  we  have  such  widely  divergent 
views  on  it  in  modern  books. 

We  assume  that  the  prehistoric  Egyptians,  when  they 
began  to  make  the  first  feeble  progress  towards  civiliza- 
tion, were  on  the  same  basis  as  that  on  which  we  find 
many  savage  tribes  of  Africa.  This  most  primitive  stage 
of  animism  lacks  a  clear  conception  of  what  we  should 
call  gods.  It  considers  the  whole  world  filled  with  spirits 
some  roaming  freely  about,  some  sedentary,  some  big 
and  powerful,  some  rather  insignificant.  They  appear, 
rather  as  transient  incarnations  than  as  permanent  souls, 
in  men  or  in  animals,  the  more  sedentary  spirits  also  in 
trees,  rocks  or  other  objects.  Disappearing  from  living 
creatures,  at  the  time  when  the  possession  of  these  ends  or 
at  their  death,  they  lead  over  to  the  idea  that  all  souls 
of  the  defunct  are  such  ghosts ;  however,  neither  the  pure 
cult  of  ancestors  nor  the  Indian  transmigration  theories 

36 


THE  EGYPTIAN  RELIGION 

ever  developed  in  Egypt.  It  is  difficult  to  draw  the  line 
betwen  the  evil  and  the  good  ghosts.  Primitive  men 
holding  the  animistic  theory  live  in  constant  fear  of  all 
ghosts  and  try  to  be  on  good  terms  with  them  all.  That 
wish  leads  so  easily  to  magical  customs  for  winning  or 
warding  off  the  spirits  that  many  modern  scholars  be- 
lieve magic  an  inseparable  part  of  all  animistic  religions. 
Fetishism  is  merely  a  specially  characteristic  representa- 
tive of  this  magical  development  of  animism. 

The  primitive  Egyptians  thus  once  had  endless  gods, 
if  we  may  call  them  gods.  The  more  the  inhabitants  of 
Egypt  settled  down  and  became  agricultural,  the  more 
they  paid  attention  to  the  local  spirits.  Originally  every 
settlement  seems  to  have  had  at  least  one  local  spirit  which 
it  worshiped  exclusively  by  sacrifices  and  magical  cere- 
monies, not  asking  what  its  relation  to  the  spirits  of  the 
neighboring  village  or  town  was,  much  less  its  relation 
to  nature.  Many  of  these  cults  survived  in  historical  time 
without  change  and  often  also  the  various  taboos  at- 
tached to  them.  Sun,  moon,  stars,  etc.,  probably  were 
considered  to  have  souls  and  may  have  been  recognized 
as  divine  but  seem  to  have  found  very  little  worship  in 
earliest  time.  Perhaps  the  town  spirit  (or  spirits)  seemed 
nearer  to  men  and  more  interested  in  them  than  those 
immovable  phenomena  of  nature.  Thus,  the  great  major- 
ity of  the  old  local  gods  of  Egypt  had  no  cosmical  mean- 
ing at  all,  or  where  such  a  meaning  was  given  to  them 
we  can  easily  see  that  it  had  been  developed  only  later 
and  mostly  very  unsuccessfully.  The  many  contradictions 
in  those  cosmical  explanations  betray  this.  Such  local 
gods  also  rarely  have  any  mythology  attached  to  them, 
because  mythology  needs  a  cosmic  basis.  The  best  proof 
of  the  animistic  origin  of  the  local  cults  is  that  the  major- 
ity of  their  gods  have  animal  form.  No  theories  of 
fear  or  of  utility  explain  these  forms ;  and  while  terrible 
animals  like  the  lion  and  crocodile  or  the  strong  bull  and 

37 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

the  mysterious  serpent  appear  frequently,  we  find  also 
the  little  shrewmouse,  the  frog,  the  dung-beetle,  small  fish 
and  birds,  etc.,  as  gods.  Where  the  animal  worship  had 
been  preserved  in  its  primitive  form,  the  later  Egyptians 
connected  the  sacred  animal  with  the  supernatural  world 
by  explaining  it  as  possessed  by  a  divine  spirit.  These 
later  theologians,  living  in  the  age  of  cosmic  religion, 
expounded  that  spirit  as  having  come  from  heaven,  incar- 
nating some  great  celestial  god.  The  famous  Apis  bull 
of  Memphis  was  explained  as  the  incarnation  of  the  sun, 
of  the  moon,  of  the  many-sided  god  Osiris,  of  the  neigh- 
boring local  gods  Sokaris  and  Ptah.  These  contradictions, 
which  we  find  quite  analogously  in  the  case  of  other  sacred 
animals,  betray  that  these  animals  originally  were  inde- 
pendent from  all  celestial  ideas;  only  the  incarnation  of 
some  unusual  ghost  is  a  good  remnant  of  the  original 
view,  betraying  clearly  the  most  primitive  animism.  The 
extension  of  the  sacredness  from  one  divine  animal  to 
the  whole  species  (e.g.,  in  the  case  of  the  cat)  is  mostly 
a  later  development,  although  some  old  local  taboos  on 
animals  may  allow  us  to  infer  it  also  for  the  primitive 
period. 

In  historic  time  the  condition  of  a  tutelary  spirit  for 
every  village  or,  perhaps,  even  every  house,  cannot  be 
found,  but  at  least  every  town  has  its  local  god.  This 
still  leaves  several  hundred  local  gods  whom  we  find  on 
the  monuments  as  actually  worshiped,  thousands  of  other 
gods  (or  '  souls/  as,  significantly,  all  gods,  great  and 
small,  are  often  called)  are  admitted  to  exist  but  have 
no  cult.  These  more  or  less  '  unknown  gods '  are,  evi- 
dently, the  local  gods  of  smaller  communities.  The  vil- 
lage god  with  a  straw  hut  as  chapel  could  not  compete 
with  the  town  god  with  his  stately  temple  and  rich  priest- 
hood, which  attracted  the  villagers  so  much  that  they  set 
up  a  shrine  of  the  '  great  god  '  in  their  settlement  and 
then  neglected  or  even  in  time  forgot  the  old  local  di- 

38 


THE  EGYPTIAN  RELIGION 

vinity.  We  can  trace  to  a  certain  extent  how  the  local 
ghost  of  a  small  village  or  town  may,  along  with  the 
increasing  population  and  power  of  that  settlement,  grow 
into  a  '  great  god '  and  eventually  into  a  god  of  the  king 
so  that  he  consequently  was  worshiped  over  all  Egypt 
and  placed  at  the  head  of  the  whole  pantheon.  To  pre- 
serve the  worship  of  lesser  gods  they  were,  from  very 
old  times,  united  with  greater  gods.  Thus  many  triads 
arose,  exactly  as  in  Babylonia.  Usually  the  triad  con- 
sisted of  father,  mother  and  son  (never  daughter),  more 
rarely  of  a  god  with  two  wives.  The  famous  ennead  of 
Heliopolis  seems  to  signify  a  looser  company  of  gods 
forming  a  triple  triad.  Great  goddesses  associating  with 
a  male  god  made  him  their  son. 

While  we  find  many  gods  (or  at  least  their  names) 
lost  by  assimilation  with  more  important  divinities,  the 
process  of  dissimilation  is  very  rare.  One  of  the  few 
examples  is  the  local  dissimilation  of  Min(u)  of  Koptos. 
into  the  younger  Amon  of  Thebes.  This  latter  god  illus- 
trates also  that  development  described  above,  from  an 
obscure  god  of  a  small  town  to  the  highest  god  of  Egypt, 
who  even  subsequently  remained  great,  while  other  gods 
had  only  temporarily  a  wider  reaching  importance. 

However,  even  before  the  beginning  of  historic  time, 
the  tendency  began  to  develop  in  Egypt,  be  it  by  progress 
of  thought  or  through  foreign  influences,  to  remove  the 
gods  from  the  narrow,  local  sphere  to  heaven  or  to  make 
them  cosmic.  But  this  tendency  never  was  carried 
through  as  successfully  and  systematically  as  in  Baby- 
lonia. Sun,  moon  and  stars  may  have  been  the  factors 
connecting  the  old  gods  with  heaven. 

Characteristic  of  Egypt  is  the  prominence  given  to  the 
sun-god  which  dominated  all  other  gods  in  a  way  hardly 
known  in  any  other  country.  Many  theories  are  attached 
to  him.  He  is  described  as  a  god  in  human  form  walking 
over  the  celestial  roads;  the  sun  is  his  face  or  eye  or 

39 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

head-ornament  or  the  royal  serpent  wound  around  his 
forehead.  Or  he  sails  in  a  ship  over  the  blue  heavenly 
ocean,  rowing  himself  or  the  sundisk  as  passenger  or  he 
is  rowed  by  divine  sailors,  that  is  by  the  stars  who  be- 
come his  crew  in  daytime.  The  sundisk  may  then  be 
in  the  cabin  or  as  a  fiery  serpent  may  wind  itself  around 
the  prow.  Very  early  the  hawk-god  Horus  became 
solar;  this  led  to  the  explanation  of  the  sun  as  a  hawk 
flying  across  the  sky  and  to  a  blending  with  the  older, 
human,  form  Re",  who  becomes  likewise  a  hawk  sitting 
in  the  ship  of  the  sun,  or  at  least  a  hawk-headed  man. 
Also  a  beetle-shaped  god  Khepri  became  at  an  early  time 
solar  and  thus  the  sun  was  explained  as  a  scarab  rolling 
its  egg  across  the  sky.  The  ichneumon  god  Atum(u)  of 
Heliopolis,  however,  had  to  assume  human  form  at  his 
solarization.  To  harmonize  these  various  forms  and 
name^  later  theology  teaches  that  Re'  is  the  general  name, 
Hor(us)  that  of  the  rising,  Atum(u)  that  of  the  descend- 
ing sun,  Khepri  the  sun  below  the  horizon  as  dead  (like* 
Osiris)  or  as  rising  or  as  the  embryonic  sun-god  pre- 
paring to  rise.  Also  the  name  Shu  especially  at  noon- 
time occurs,  and  also  other  names  (Khnumu,  on  which 
see  below,  Euf,  etc.),  for  the  nocturnal  sun  in  the  lower 
world.  Later  many  other  gods  were  solarized.  Because 
the  wrords  '  eye '  and  '  serpent '  are  feminine,  an  endless 
number  of  goddesses  were  also  explained  as  female  forms 
of  the  sun  and  called  the  eye,  crown,  or  daughter  of  the 
sun-god.  These  female  explanations,  however,  never  be- 
came popular;  the  prevailing  theory  remained  that  the 
sun-god  was  masculine.  The  myth  explaining  why  the 
sun-god  has  only  one  eye,  a  myth  which  has  wandered  far 
in  the  world's  mvthology.  occurs  in  various  forms.  The 
lost  eye  dropt>ed  into  the  depths  of  the  ocean:  how  it 
was  recovered  thence  is  told  in  many  varying  Egyptian 
myths. 

The  moon^  the  most  prominent  personality  of  the 

40 


THE  EGYPTIAN  RELIGION 

Babylonian  pantheon,  found  remarkably  little  respect  in 
Egypt,  although  identified  with  the  ibis-god  Thout(i),  he 
became  also  the  god  of  wisdom,  of  chronology  (because 
the  lunar  year  is  most  obvious  to  primitive  man)  and  of 
letters,  the  secretary  of  the  gods  and  their  physician,  who 
heals  the  sun's  eye  when  it  is  torn  out  or  damaged.  Later 
he  had  also  the  form  of  the  baboon  ascribed  to  him.  Only 
a  few  minor  deities,  like  Khons(u)  of  Thebes,  became 
lunar. 

Neither  have  the  planets  as  important  a  part  as  we 
should  expect.  Originally  all  were  treated  as  manifesta- 
tions of  the  heavenly  good  Horus,  i.e.,  they  were  not 
clearly  distinguished.  The  morning  star  was  known  only 
as  masculine,  as  the  husband  of  the  greatest  fixed  star, 
the  dog  star  (Sothis).  The  constellations  were  different 
from  those  of  the  Babylonians,  except  that  Orion  repre- 
sented also  in  Egypt  the  celestial  hero,  and  therefore  often 
was  identified  with  the  conqueror  Horus.  The  Great 
Dipper  was  his  adversary,  the  ship  Argo  held  the  dead  or 
the  infant  Osiris,  and  the  Pleiades  seem  to  have  been 
the  constellation  of  fate  ('the  seven  Hat-hors').  The 
Babylonian  zodiacal  constellations  became  known  only  in 
very  late  time;  originally  36  so-called  decan  stars  held 
their  place,  dividing  the  year  into  36  weeks  of  ten  days 
(the  remaining  last  five  days  of  the  year  forming  a  half 
decade  of  special  sacredness).  The  Milky  Way  does  not 
seem  to  have  played  any  part  in  mythology.  While  late 
Egyptian  astronomy  shows  clear  Babylonian  influences, 
these  are  very  feeble  in  earlier  time. 

The  sky  originally  seems  to  have  been  depicted  as  a 
black  (i.e.,  according  to  Oriental  notions  blue)  bull, 
exactly  as  in  Asia,  but  soon  it  assumed  feminine  gender, 
according  to  the  Egyptian  word  for  it.  The  heavenly 
cow,  between  the  horns  of  which  the  sun-god  shows  him- 
self, was  early  identified  with  an  old  cow-goddess,  Hat- 
hor.  She  assumed  later  the  character  of  the  Asiatic  queen 

41 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

of  heaven,  becoming  mistress  of  love,  joy,  music,  finery, 
etc.,  and  the  names  of  many  other  Egyptian  goddesses 
were  connected  with  her.  Heaven  at  night-time  was,  in 
earlier  time,  mostly  understood  as  a  tree  rising  at  evening- 
time  from  the  ocean ;  the  stars  were  its  leaves  or  fruits  or 
represented  the  gods  dwelling  and  moving  in  it.  This 
starry  tree  allows  man  to  read  both  the  past  and  the  future 
(therefore  the  goddess  of  fate,  who  sits  in  the  depths  of 
the  sky  writing  the  fate  of  the  whole  world,  is  connected 
with  it).  It  also  gives  eternal  life  in  its  fruit  to  the  gods 
who  eat  it  every  day,  and  also  to  the  souls  o-f  the  dead 
who  approach  this  tree  in  the  lower  or  the  higher  regions. 
The  celestial  tree  can  also  be  double,  symbolizing  morning 
and  evening,  the  summer  and  winter  solstice,  etc.  As  the 
sun  rises  from  the  tree  at  morning  and  hides  itself  in  it 
at  evening,  the  tree  can  also  be  understood  as  a  goddess 
and  thus  is  only  another  form  of  the  cow  Hat-hor,  or  of 
Nut,  who  in  woman's  form  bends  over  the  earth  be- 
getting with  this  consort  the  sun  as  her  child  anew  every 
night  as  she  had  begotten  him  at  the  creation  of  the 
world.  At  evening  her  child  returns  into  her  bosom  or 
mouth  re-begetting  himself.  While  thus  the  sky  is  under- 
stood as  the  star-beset  body  of  the  heavenly  goddess  at 
night  or  as  her  blue  hair  at  daytime,  we  find  it  also  ex- 
plained as  water,  the  heavenly  ocean  forming  a  continua- 
tion of  the  ocean  which  flows  around  and  under  the  earth 
or  of  the  Nile.  At  the  same  time  it  is  also  a  metal  roof 
and  thunder  is  the  resounding  of  this  immense  sheet 
of  metal  from  which  the  meteorites  fall  as  chips  and 
from  which  the  similar  ore  below  is  derived.  All  these 
theories  are  boldly  harmonized  so  that,  for  example,  the 
heavenly  cow  is  held  to  consist  of  water  and  the  heavenly 
ocean  to  flow  over  the  metal  roof.  The  aether  or  empty 
space  between  sky  and  earth  is  identified  with  the  god 
Shu,  whose  strong  arms  uphold  the  sky-goddess  or  at 
the  creation  separated  her  from  her  consort,  the  earth. 

42 


THE  EGYPTIAN  RELIGION 

Shu,  however,  was  originally  a  lion  god;  he  was  first 
understood  as  a  form  of  the  sun,  then  as  solar  ruler  of 
the  sky  or  as  the  sky  himself,  so  that  we  see  that  his  role  as 
the  aether  was  a  secondary  differentiation  of  the  last- 
mentioned  development.  His  sister  and  wife,  the  lioness 
Tefenet,  confirms  this  development,  because  she  retained 
the  character  of  a  female  sun,  i.e.,  the  eye  or  daughter 
of  the  heavenly  god. 

The  earth-god  (Qeb  or  Geb),  the  husband  of  the  sky, 
is  thought  of  as  a  man  stretched  on  his  back ;  all  vegeta- 
tion grows  from  his  flesh.  A  later  theological  etymology 
then  makes  him  a  gander,  the  great  cackler  who  lays  the 
sun-egg  at  night  and  cackles  over  it.  An  earlier  form  of 
the  earth-god  was  Aker(u),  a  double-faced  lion;  one 
mouth  swallows  up  the  sun-god  at  evening  and  the  other 
mouth  spits  him  out  in  the  morning.  Later  theologians 
distinguished  him  as  the  depth  of  the  earth  from  Qeb. 
The  prevailing  idea  of  the  sun's  origin  is,  however,  that 
he  was  born  or  begat  himself,  proceeding  from  the  oldest 
of  all  gods,  Nun,  the  ocean,  or,  more  particularly,  the 
abyss  into  which  the  sun  still  sinks  every  night.  This 
wise  father  of  the  sun  and  of  all  gods  shows  that  the  cos- 
mogony deriving  the  whole  world  from  the  chaotic  prim- 
eval waters  and  recognizing  the  sunlight  as  the  cause  of 
all  organic  life  and  of  the  present  order  of  the  world, 
belongs  to  the  earliest  results  of  human  thought.  The 
Egyptian  mind,  however,  did  not  always  distinguish  the 
great  ocean  from  the  local  ocean,  the  beneficent  Nile,  the 
father  of  all  fatness,  or  from  the  local  god  who  presided 
over  the  extreme  south,  the  ram-shaped  cataract  god 
Khnum(u),  because  the  source  of  the  Nile  (single,  or 
double,  i.e.,  representing  the  Egyptian  and  the  Ethiopia 
Nile,  or  quadruple,  i.e.,  the  four  sources  representing  the 
water  system  of  the  world  in  so  many  mythologies  of 
other  nations)  was  placed  at  the  first  cataract  and  was 
connected  with  the  abyss.  Likewise,  the  Osiris  myth  led 

43 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

to  two  contradictory  explanations  of  the  ocean  and  its 
smaller  counterpart  streaming  from  the  cataract. 

We  thus  find  an  extremely  rich  mythology  attached  to 
the  forces  of  nature  in  a  way  which  betrays  a  long  de- 
velopment of  struggling  speculations.  That  these  could 
not  be  successfully  harmonized  and  not  even  systematized 
as  far  as  in  most  mythologies  of  Western  Asia,  was  not 
felt  to  be  a  great  disadvantage.  All  mythologies  have 
somewhat  a  kaleidoscopic  character;  the  ancients  con- 
sidered this  as  attractive  and  did  not  worry  over  contra- 
dictions as  much  as  the  children  of  more  rationalistic 
ages.  That  the  kaleidoscopic  features  are  so  very  promi- 
nent in  Egypt  was  less  caused  by  lack  of  systematic  sense 
in  the  Egyptian  mind  than  by  its  over-conservative  cling- 
ing to  the  old  local  gods  of  the  forefathers.  Originally 
destitute  of  all  cosmic  meaning  and  all  mythology,  as  we 
have  said  above,  those  old  pictures,  fetishes  and  sacred 
animals  admitted  various  interpretations.  Thus  it  became 
possible  that  the  theories  of  the  later  cosmic  conception 
of  religion  were  attached  to  different  local  names.  The 
priests  were  so  very  reluctant  to  admit  that  another  god 
than  the  one  of  their  own  town  held  some  important 
function  in  nature  (especially  the  embodiment  in  the  sun 
and  the  rule  over  the  sky),  that  many  competing  ex- 
planations were  never  or  only  incompletely  reconciled. 

A  great  part  of  the  pantheon  never  could  be  adapted 
to  any  cosmic  explanation  or  develop  a  mythology.  Thus, 
the  extremely  old  worship  of  Min(u)  at  Koptos  never 
received  any  such  explanation,  although  his  rock-chapel 
and  sacred  grove  would  seem  to  us  to  suggest  specula- 
tions. Only  when  the  obscene  statue  of  this  god  was 
compared  with  Osiris,  he  gained  a  little  mythological  life. 
The  white  bull  attached  to  that  cult,  however,  remained 
meaningless  and  mysterious.  And  the  similarly  old  and 
primitive  statue  of  Ptah  at  Memphis  admitted  no  other 
explanation  for  later  thinkers  than  that  arising  from  the 

44 


THE  EGYPTIAN  RELIGION 

pale  (yellow)  skin  of  this  god  and  from  a  forced  ety- 
mology of  his  name,  namely,  that  he  was  a  god  much 
confined  to  his  home,  an  artist  who  produced  works  in 
stone,  wood  and  metal,  hence  the  Greeks  compared  him 
with  their  smith-god  Hephaestus,  and  the  later  Egyptians 
tried  to  ascribe  to  him  a  poorly  denned  activity  at  the 
creation  of  the  world.  An  identification  with  the  wise 
god  of  the  abyss  Nun,  the  father  of  all  gods,  is  a  product 
of  these  late  attempts  to  give  some  meaning  to  the  old, 
obscure  cult.  But  with  some  less  prominent  gods  it  is 
questionable  whether  any  serious  attempts  were  made  to 
lift  them  beyond  the  conception  of  the  primitive,  animistic 
age.  For  the  masses  of  worshipers  this  was  not  neces- 
sary; the  veneration  was  mostly  founded  more  on  the 
antiquity  than  on  the  meaning  of  the  divinities. 

We  have  omitted  so  far  to  discuss  the  group  of  gods 
which  found  the  richest  development  of  mythology  in  all 
Egypt  and  the  widest  worship,  extending  even  beyond 
the  soil  of  Egypt.  This  is  the  Osirian  divine  circle. 
While  the  names  of  all  its  gods  are  old  and  purely  Egyp- 
tian, we  must  express  doubts  whether  their  mythological 
meaning  and  connection  belonged  to  prehistoric  Egypt. 
We  find  that  the  Osirian  mythology  is  closely  connected 
with  the  myth  of  the  dying  god  who  appears  as  Tarn- 
muz—  Adonis  in  Canaan,  as  Duzu  in  Babylonia,  as  Attis 
in  Asia  Minor,  etc.  The  Egyptians  themselves  were  con- 
scious that  the  cult  of  Osiris  had  a  close  parallel  in 
Phoenicia  (especially  at  Gebal  or  Byblos),  and  partly  even 
seem  to  have  admitted  that  the  Phoenician  cult  was  more 
original.  We  find  it  fully  developed  in  Egypt  in  the  pyra- 
mid texts  before  2500  and  can  thus  trace  it  to  the  time 
about  3000  B.C.,  but  we  cannot  establish  it  with  certainty 
before  that  time,  at  least  not  in  Upper  Egypt.  It  may 
have  had  a  long  prior  development  in  Lower  Egypt  where 
the  principal  figure,  the  god  Osiris,  was  identified  with 
the  local  god  at  Busiris,  whose  oldest  symbol  was  a  very 

45 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

peculiar  wooden  pillar.  Possibly,  there  the  neighboring 
goddess  Isis  was  associated  with  him  as  his  wife  and  the 
hawk-god  Horns  as  his  son  even  before  this  triad  was 
connected  in  any  way  with  that  Asiatic  myth  of  the  god 
of  dying  and  reviving  nature. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  myth  was  nowhere  else  so 
richly  developed  as  in  Egypt.    There  we  find  Osiris  ex- 
plained as  manifesting  himself  in  every  change  of  nature, 
above  all  in  the  sun  which  dies,  is  buried,  and  revives 
every  day ;  the  dissection  of  Osiris  into  many  pieces  seems, 
to  connect  the  sun  with  the  stars.     He  shows  himself 
also  in  the  moon,  the  most  changeable  of  all  heavenly 
bodies,  and  in  some  of  the  principal  stars  and  constella- 
tions (Orion,  Argo),  even  in  the  whole  sky,  so  that  he 
becomes  god  of  the  sky,  manifesting  himself  in  the  celes- 
tial tree  as  god  of  the  year  or  of  eternal  life.     As  year- 
god  he  appears  also  in  plant-life  or  in  the  water,  awaken- 
ing the  seeds  every  year;  hence  this  god  of  the  spring 
season  in  northern  countries  takes  the  specifically  Egyp- 
tian character  of  the  inundation  water.     This  leads  to 
complete  identification  with  the  Nile,  as  this  springs  from 
the  dark  netherworld.    Osiris  can  be  explained  also  as  the 
abyss  or  even  as  the  great  ocean  and  as  the  quickening 
element  of  water  in  general.    As  god  of  the  lower  world 
and  the  realm  of  the  dead,  this  black  (i.e.,  dead)  god  re- 
ceives the  character  of  judge  of  the  dead,  which  idea  is 
nowhere  as  fully  developed  as  in  Egypt.     He  procures 
resurrection  to  the  dead,  for  the  water  of  life  and  plant  of 
life  (often  identified  with  the  vine)  are  in  his  hand;  there- 
fore every  dead  man  wishes  to  become  one  with  Osiris. 
There  are,  however,  some  traces  that  his  responsibility 
for  bringing  death  into  the  world  and  becoming  fore- 
father of  mortal  humanity  was  sometimes  felt  and  the 
question  of  a  guilt  was  raised.     After  all,  this  was  the 
most  complicated  and,  therefore,  the  most  attractive  char- 
acter among  all  the  gods,  as  the  ruler  both  of  light  and 

46 


THE  EGYPTIAN  RELIGION 

darkness,  both  of  life  and  death,  the  beginning  and  the 
end  of  everything,  forefather  of  mankind  and  of  civiliza- 
tion. His  judicial  seat  may  be  found  in  the  stars  or  in 
the  lower  world,  or  near  or  in  the  source  of  the  Nile, 
either  farther  south  in  Nubia  or  in  the  depths  of  the  cata- 
ract waters,  or  in  other  remote  regions.  So  he  lends 
himself  easily  to  the  character  of  a  god  of  all  nature. 

His  faithful  wife  Isis  bears  the  traits  of  the  Asiatic 
queen  of  heaven  and  like  her  appears  as  mourning  end- 
lessly over  her  lost  lover,  reviving  him  directly  or  at 
least  in  his  son  Horus  or  in  the  Nile  (springing  from  or 
swelling  by  her  tears)  or  in  heavenly  phenomena.  The 
hawk-god,  Horus,  before  his  connection  with  Osiris,  god 
of  the  sun  or  of  heaven,  frequently  is  declared  to  be 
identical  with  Osiris,  as  reborn  form  of  the  latter;  this 
gives  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  all  his  other  cosmic 
explanations  parallel  -to  that  of  Osiris.  , 

Somewhat  later  in  origin  seems  to  be  the  part  of  Seth 
as  adversary  of  this  good  triad  and  murderer  of  his 
brother  Osiris.  This  god,  once  the  chief  of  the  South- 
land or  even  of  the  whole  Egyptian  pantheon,  who  was, 
it  seems,  venerated  in  a  strange  animal  which  was  later 
interpreted  as  wild  ass,  boar,  etc.,  came  into  political  con- 
trast to  Horus.  Identified  with  the  storm  and  thunder 
he  became  thus  a  wicked  god,  but  nevertheless  remained 
popular  especially  as  a  manly  divinity  well  suited  for 
soldiers.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  his  development 
into  a  real  Satan  began  only  with  the  introduction  of  the 
Babylonian  myth  of  the  abysmal  serpent  Tiamat,  after 
2500  B.C.  Seth  was  more  and  mo-re  identified  with  that 
enemy  of  the  sun-god  (called  Apop  in  Egypt)  and  thus 
the  impersonation  of  the  ocean  passed  from  good  Osiris 
to  wicked  Seth.  The  influence  of  that  myth,  which  cre- 
ated the  idea  of  a  Satan  in  so  many  other  religions,  had 
the  same  effect  also  in  Egypt.  Thus  after  1000  B.C.  Seth 
had  developed  into  a  real  devil  worshiped  only  by 
sorcerers. 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

We  cannot  discuss  the  connection  of  the  obscure  god- 
dess Nephthys  with  Seth  as  his  wife,  or  of  an  earlier 
god  of  all  dead,  Anubis,  with  Osiris  as  his  son  or  at  least 
his  assistant  in  judging  the  dead,  nor  the  rich  develop- 
ment of  the  many  theories  about  life  after  death.  Egyp- 
tian religion  after  the  ancient  introduction  of  the  Osirian 
myth  often  received  Asiatic  motifs  and  even  some  Asiatic 
gods,  but  no  further  influences  so  far-reaching  as  those 
mentioned  above. 

The  autochthonous  development  of  thought  was  slow 
and  timid.  The  syncretism  of  similar  gods  was,  indeed, 
old  and  the  early  solar  explanations  of  so  many  gods 
prepared  the  ground  for  the  theory,  found  after  1600  B.C., 
that  all  forces  of  nature  were  only  manifestations  of  one 
great  god  of  the  universe,  the  sun.  Thus  the  imperfect 
solar  monotheism  of  the  short-lived  religious  reform  of 
Pharaoh  Amenhotep  IV  (about  1400  B.C.)  was,  after  all, 
not  as  novel  an  undertaking  as  it  seems  at  first;  some 
pantheistic  and  almost  monotheistic  tendencies  can  be 
traced  some  centuries  farther  back.  The  masses,  how- 
ever, successfully  resisted  that  reform,  clinging  to  the 
old  local  names  and  cults.  It  cannot  be  repeated  too 
strongly  that  all  deviations  from  their  conservatism  were 
isolated  and  timid  steps  of  a  few  most  advanced  scholars. 

The  question  remains :  Why  did  this  religion  effect 
such  a  favorable  and  deep  impression  upon  the  Greeks 
and  Romans  that  it  extended  over  the  whole  Roman 
empire,  so  that  in  the  last  centuries  of  heathenism  many 
hoped  to  find  in  the  popular  cult  of  Osiris  an  antidote 
against  the  spreading  Christian  creed?  True,  that  Egyp- 
tian religion  in  foreign  lands  was  strongly  influenced  by 
ideas  from  other  religions,  above  all  from  Greek  phi- 
losophy, but  still  it  tried  to  keep  the  outward  forms  of 
Egyptian  cult,  temples  with  hieroglyphic  inscriptions, 
obelisks,  sacred  animals,  etc.  We  cannot  explain  this 
success  with  the  non-Egyptian  masses  from  the  moral 

48 


THE  EGYPTIAN  RELIGION 

influence  of  the  Egyptian  religion.  It  brought  no  new 
ethical  ideas  to  the  gentile  world.  Much  less  can  we 
explain  that  success  from  profound  metaphysical  specula- 
tions. We  have  not  discovered  a  single  line  of  philosophy 
like  that  of  the  Greeks  in  hieroglyphic  writing,  and  must 
doubt  whether  such  a  literature  ever  was  attempted.  The 
Egyptian  priests  were  too  much  keepers  of  the  old  tradi- 
tions to  open  such  new  paths  of  thinking. 

However,  it  seems  that  it  was  this  very  conservatism 
and  the  simple,  blind  faith  of  the  Egyptian  masses  which 
impressed  the  classical  people  so  very  deeply.  Greek 
religion  had  become  a  shadowy  remembrance  and  was 
treated  with  skepticism  and  frivolity,  while  the  Egyptians 
firmly  insisted  on  the  bodily  presence  of  the  gods  in  their 
temples.  So  the  Greeks  concluded  that  such  an  earnest 
faith  must  have  some  deeper,  secret  reasons  and  that  the 
Egyptian  gods,  notwithstanding  all  their  strange  features, 
possessed  more  reality  than  the  shadowy  gods  of  Greece. 
The  wonderful  civilization,  above  all,  the  architecture  of 
the  Egyptians  and  the  attractiveness  of  everything  un- 
intelligible added  to  this  impression  that  the  mysterious 
creed  of  Egypt  deserved  special  esteem.  This  over- 
valuation of  the  alleged  religious  wisdom  hidden  in  the 
hieroglyphs  has  remained  to  this  day  and  still  influences 
many  modern  scholars ;  but  it  cannot  stand  any  unpreju- 
diced criticism,  as  we  have  here  tried  to  show. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

H.  Brugsch :  Religion  und  Theologie  der  alien  Aegypten,  1888. 

E.  A.  W.  Budge :  The  Gods  of  the  Egyptians,  1904. 

Georg  Steindorff:  The  Religion  of  the  Ancient  Egyptians,  1004 
(American  Lectures  on  the  History  of  Religions). 

Alfred  Wiedemann :  Religion  of  the  Ancient^  Egyptians^,  1907. 

Adolf  Erman:  A  Handbook  of  Egyptian  Religion,  English  Transla- 
tion by  A.  S.  Griffith,  1907. 

In  de  la  Saussaye's  Religionsgeschichte,  article  by  H.  O.  Lange:  "Die 
yEgypten,"  vol.  I,  pp.  172-245. 

The  volume  by  W.  Max  Muller,  "  The  Mythology  of  the  Egyptians  " 
in  the  series  The  Mythology  of  All  Races  is  now  in  press. 

49 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  RELIGION  OF  BABYLONIA  AND  ASSYRIA 
BY  MORRIS  JASTROW,  JR 

I. 

OUR  interest  in  the  religion  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria 
is  threefold:  for  its  antiquity;  for  its  connection  with  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  of  ancient  civilizations;1  and  for 
its  bearings,  in  part  direct,  in  part  indirect,  on  the  un- 
folding of  religious  thought  among  the  ancient  Hebrews. 

We  are  now  able  to  trace  the  history  of  the  Euphrates 
Valley  back  to  a  period  considerably  beyond  3000  B.C. 
At  that  early  date  there  were  two  distinct  ethnic  groups 
forming  the  main  body  of  the  population.  As  depicted 
on  the  monuments  and  works  of  art  the  one  group  is 
clean  shaven,  the  other  bearded,  though  not  infrequently 
with  the  upper  lip  shaved.2  The  former  group  is  marked 
by  obliquely  set  eyes  and  a  long  but  not  thick  nose,  and 
by  thin  lips  and  rather  high  cheek  bones,  the  other  has 
the  fleshy  nose  and  thick  lips  as  well  as  other  features 
characteristic  of  the  Semitic  race.  The  variation  extends 
to  the  dress,  a  flounced  garment  hanging  from  the  waist 
in  the  one  case,  a  plaid  thrown  across  the  shoulder  and 
draping  the  entire  body  in  the  other.  The  group  with 
the  racial  characteristics  of  the  Semites  was  known  as 
the  Akkadians ;  the  other,  a  non-Semitic  group,  but  whose 
possible  affinities  with  other  races  has  not  yet  been  de- 
termined, bore  the  name  Sumerian.  The  centre  of  the 
Semitic  settlements,  at  the  time  when  the  monumental 

1  See  Jastrow,  The  Civilization  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  for  a 
full  account  of  the  history,  religion,  commerce,  law,  art  and  literature 
of  the  region. 

"See  Eduard  Meyer,  Sumerier  und  Semiten  in  Babylonien  (Ber- 
lin, 1906),  for  a  full  exposition  of  the  subject  with  many  illustrations. 

50 


RELIGION  OF  BABYLONIA  AND  ASSYRIA 

material  comes  into  view,  was  in  the  northern  section 
of  the  Euphrates  Valley,  while  the  strongholds  of  the 
Sumerians  were  in  the  south.3  The  Semites  appear  to 
have  entered  the  valley  from  the  northwest,  coming  down 
from  the  mountain  regions  of  Syria,  while  the  Sumerians 
— also  a  people  of  mountainous  origin — probably  came 
from  the  northeast,  though  this  is  still  a  mooted  point. 
Which  of  the  two  groups  came  first  is  likewise  a  question 
to  which  as  yet  no  definite  answer  can  be  given,  though 
there  is  much  in  favor  of  Eduard  Meyer's  view  that  the 
Semites  or  Akkadians  were  the  first  on  the  ground  and 
that  the  Sumerians  entered  the  land  as  conquerors,  hold- 
ing the  Akkadians  in  subjection  for  many  centuries,  until, 
about  2500  B.C.,  the  tide  began  to  turn.  At  about  2100 
B.C.  we  find  the  Akkadians  definitely  in  control  in  the 
entire  Euphrates  Valley  and  maintaining  the  supremacy 
over  the  Sumerians,  though  not  without  some  periods  of 
temporary  reaction  especially  in  the  extreme  southern 
section  where  the  Sumerians  managed  to  retain  a  sem- 
blance of  political  independence. 

More  important  than  the  question  of  the  original 
settlement  of  the  Valley  is  the  rivalry  between  Sumerians 
and  Akkadians  which  directly  stimulated  the  intellectual 
qualities  of  both  groups  and  led  to  the  high  order  of 
culture  for  which  the  Euphrates  Valley  became  distin- 
guished. It  will  be  found  to  be  a  general  rule  that  civili- 
zations of  the  first  rank  develop  through  the  comming- 
ling of  two  distinct  races,  entering  into  rivalry  with  each 
other.  Such  a  commingling  develops  the  best  qualities 
in  both.  To  distinguish  in  detail  the  elements  contributed 
by  each  is  a  task  that  lies  beyond  the  scope  of  a  survey 
of  the  religious  views  and  practices  unfolded  in  the 
Euphrates  Valley.  Obviously,  the  share  of  the  Sumerians 

8  On  these  divisions  of  the  Euphrates  Valley  and  on  the  early 
and  later  history  of  the  Sumerians  and  Akkadians  see  Jastrow, 
op.  cit.  c.  iii. 

Si 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

in  the  earlier  periods  was  far  greater.  The  cuneiform 
script  developing  from  picture  writing  is  of  Sumerian 
origin.  The  oldest  documents  of  all  kinds  are  written  in 
Sumerian.  Later,  when  the  Akkadians  began  to  obtain 
control,  the  script  was  adapted  to  conveying  thoughts, 
facts  and  data  in  Akkadian,  while  the  Sumerian,  though 
for  a  long  time  surviving  in  the  cult,  became  archaic,  and 
even  before  this  stage  was  reached,  was  modified  by  the 
introduction  of  Akkadian  elements.  In  return  many  dis- 
tinctly Sumerian  features  passed  over  into  Akkadian,  and 
externally  in  the  use  of  hundreds  of  characters  used 
ideographically,4  the  Akkadian  continued  to  show  a 
Sumerian  aspect. 

In  the  domain  of  architecture,  one  may  see  the  result 
of  the  commingling  of  the  two  races  in  the  two  types 
of  religious  edifices  that  arose  in-  the  important  centres 
of  the  Euphrates  Valley,  (i)  the  house  as  the  dwelling 
of  the  deity  modelled  after  the  human  habitation,  arid 
(2)  the  stage  tower,  a  huge  brick  construction  of  con- 
siderable height  with  a  winding  ascent,  clearly  in  imi- 
tation of  a  mountain  with  a  road  leading  to  the  top,  as 
the  seat  of  the  deity.  The  house-motif  for  the  temple  is 
of  Semitic  origin,  while  the  stage  tower  is  the  contri- 
bution of  the  Sumerians  who,  accustomed  in  their  moun- 
tain homes  to  worship  their  deities  on  mountain  tops, 
endeavored  to  symbolize  this  belief  by  the  imitation  of  a 
mountain  when  they  came  to  a  perfectly  flat  country  like 
the  Euphrates  Valley. 

In  passing,  it  may  be  well  to  remind  the  reader  that 
the  course  of  civilization  in  Mesopotamia  is  from  the 
south  to  the  north,  that  Assyria  as  a  northern  offshoot 
of  Babylonia — the  common  designation  of  the  south — 
represents  merely  an  extension  of  the  culture  produced 
in  Babylonia.  The  language  of  Assyria  is  identical  with 

4  I.e.,  each  sign  representing  an  entire  word  and  not  a  mere 
syllable.  See  for  details,  Jastrow,  op.  cit.  c.  ii,  especially  p.  99  seq. 

52 


RELIGION  OF  BABYLONIA  AND  ASSYRIA 

that  of  Babylonia,  the  art  is  largely  borrowed  from  the 
south,  though  in  temple  and  palace  architecture  some 
original  contributions  were  made.  The  literature  pro- 
duced in  Babylonia  was  copied  by  the  royal  scribes  of 
Assyria,  and  in  the  domain  of  religious  conceptions  only 
minor  modifications  are  to  be  noted  in  the  aspect  taken 
on  by  the  transfer  of  the  religion  from  Babylonia  to 
Assyria. 

Outwardly,  to  be  sure,  and  practically  Babylonia  and 
Assyria  present  a  striking  contrast.  Corresponding  to 
the  more  rugged  region  of  northern  Mesopotamia,  the 
Assyrians,  mixed  with  some  non-Semitic  groups  that  came 
down  from  Asia  Minor,  appear  to  have  been  from  the 
time  that  they  appear  on  the  horizon,  a  little  before  2000 
B.C.,  of  a  more  martial  disposition.  Warfare  became 
the  expression  of  the  genius  of  Assyria.  A  rivalry  ensued 
between  the  north  and  south  which  led  to  serious  en- 
counters as  early  as  1500  B.C.  and  eventually  brought 
about  the  subjection  of  the  more  pacific,  though  by  no 
means  weak,  south  to  the  north.  The  seven  centuries 
from  c.  noo  B.C.  to  600  B.C.  represent  the  period  of 
Assyria's  greatness,  going  hand  in  hand  with  her  greatest 
martial  activity;  but  in  return  she  exhausted  her  vitality 
quicker  than  Babylonia.  In  606  B.C.  Nineveh  fell  as  a 
result  of  a  combination  against  her  in  which  hordes  from 
Asia  Minor  joined  with  the  Babylonians  to  rid  the  world 
of  a  menace  that  threatened  the  existence  of  large  and 
small  nations  as  well.  A  new,  though  short,  era  of  inde- 
pendence dawned  for  Babylonia,,  which  came  to  an  end 
with  Cyrus'  triumphal  entry  into  Babylon  in  539  B.C. 
Persia  fell  heir  to  the  glorious  legacy  of  Babylonia. 
During  this  long  stretch  of  three  millenniums,  the  Eu- 
phrates Valley  had  undergone  many  vicissitudes  of  for- 
tune. Not  infrequently  foreign  invaders  sat  on  the 
throne.  Indeed,  for  five  centuries  (c.  1700-1200  B.C.) 
a  people  coming  from  the  mountainous  region  to  the 

53 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

east  and  known  as  the  Cassites  retained  the  mastery  over 
the  Euphrates  Valley;  but  the  Sumero- Akkadian  civili- 
zation, though  suffering  a  temporary  decline,  was  too 
firmly  established  to  be  swept  away.  Religion,  art,  litera- 
ture and  commerce  continued  to  flourish,  though  showing 
changed  aspects,  as  a  period  of  upward  tendency  was 
followed  by  a  reaction  during  the  centuries  of  Cassite 
control, 

II 

The  Babylonian-Assyrian  religion  in  its  oldest  form 
as  revealed  by  the  votive  inscriptions  of  Sumerian  rulers 
and  by  specimens  of  literature  that  may  with  great  proba- 
bility be  carried  back  to  the  earliest  period,  is  long  past 
the  stage  of  primitive  beliefs,  though  it  shows  traces  that 
in  its  conception  of  divine  government  of  the  universe 
it  started  from  what  is  commonly  termed  animism.  By 
this  term  is  meant  a  view  of  nature  ascribing  life  to  all 
phenomena  and  of  the  same  order  as  the  vital  torce  that 
manifests  itself  in  human  and  animal  activity.5  Under 
this  view  the  gods  worshiped  by  man  are  personifications 
either  of  phenomena  of  nature  or  of  objects  in  nature, 
primarily  the  sun,  the  moon,  the  storm  (with  its  accom- 
paniment of  rain,  thunder  and  lightning),  the  earth, 
water  (including  streams  and  wells),  trees  and  rocks. 
Religion  being  the  partly  emotional,  partly  intellectual 
response  to  an  instinct,  confirmed  by  experience,  that 
man  is  not  the  arbiter  of  his  fate,  it  is  natural  for  him 
to  make  the  effort  to  supplement  his  inherent  and  self- 
evident  weakness  in  the  presence  of  nature  by  securing  the 
aid  of  powers  upon  whose  favor  he  is  dependent.  The 
storm  destroys  his  handiwork,  and  therefore  to  avoid  the 
catastrophe  he  seeks  the  favor  of  the  power  manifesting 
itself  in  the  storm.  The  stream  may  sink  his  primitive 

6  See  Chapter  I  of  this  work  for  a  more  detailed  discussion  of 
animism,  as  a  stage  through  which  primitive  culture  passes  every- 
where. 

54 


RELIGION  OF  BABYLONIA  AND  ASSYRIA 

craft  and  therefore,  before  trusting  himself  to  the  treach- 
erous element,  he  endeavors  to  assure  himself  of  the  favor 
of  the  spirit  or  power  residing  in  the  water.  When  he 
advances  to  the  agricultural  stage,  the  earth  and  the 
sun  are  the  two  forces  that  in  the  main  condition  his 
welfare;  and  as  a  consequence  he  personifies  the  earth 
as  a  mother  in  whose  womb  the  seed  has  been  placed, 
which  with  the  cooperation  of  the  sun  is  brought  to 
fruition. 

Starting  from  this  animistic  conception  of  nature, 
the  Sumerians  and  Akkadians  developed  a  pantheon,  all 
the  members  of  which  take  their  rise  as  personified 
powers  of  nature.  In  thus  grouping  the  gods  into  a  more 
or  less  definite  relationship — and  that  is  involved  in  the 
creation  of  a  pantheon — the  religion  passes  beyond  the 
animistic  stage.  The  gods  in  the  larger  centres  become, 
primarily,  the  protectors  of  the  place,  and  as  the  group 
enlarges  its  geographical  boundaries,  the  jurisdiction  and 
the  attributes  of  a  local  god  are  correspondingly  in- 
creased. He  becomes,  irrespective  of  his  original  char- 
acter, the  protector  of  the  fields,  the  guardian  of  the 
army;  it  is  he  who  gives  victory  over  the  enemy  and 
when  misfortunes  come,  it  is  the  god  who  sends  the 
punishment  because  of  anger  that  has  been  aroused  in 
him.  The  combination  of  little  groups  into  a  powerful 
state  brings  about  further  changes,  and  as  one  state  comes 
to  exercise  a  sovereignty  over  other  combinations  of 
groups,  the  gods  of  the  various  localities  are  organized 
after  the  pattern  of  human  society  into  a  royal  court 
with  gradations  in  rank,  corresponding  to  the  class  dis- 
tinctions that  grow  in  complication  as  combinations  of 
groups  result  in  the  formation  of  a  political  unit. 

Of  the  chief  local  gods  which  thus  take  on  a  larger 
character  we  may  single  out  Enki,  whom  the  Akkadians 
designated  as  Ea,  and  who  from  being  the  patron  deity 
of  Eridu,  lying  at  the  head  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  becomes 

55 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

the  god  of  waters  in  general.  Another  deity,  Enlil, 
originally  a  storm-god  and  associated  with  the  old  Su- 
merian  centre,  Nippur,  becomes  the  head  of  the  Sumerian 
pantheon  because  of  the  importance  which  Nippur  ac- 
quired, in  part  political,  in  part  due  to  the  position  of 
Nippur  as  a  religious  centre.  As  such,  Enlil  acquires 
attributes  originally  foreign  to  his  nature.  He  becomes 
an  agricultural  deity  and  is  addressed  in  terms  which 
show  that  he  has  absorbed  the  power  ascribed  to  the  sun 
and  water  as  well.  At  Shirpurla,  another  Sumerian 
centre,  the  chief  deity  is  Ningirsu,  a  personification  of 
the  sun,  who  becomes  a  powerful  warrior,  with  a  mighty 
net  in  which  he  catches  the  soldiers  of  the  enemy.  In 
Uruk  we  find  a  great  mother  goddess,  Nana,  worshiped 
as  the  patron  of  the  place  by  the  side  of  Anu,  originally 
likewise  a  sun-god  who  becomes  the  god  of  the  heavens 
in  general  and  the  father  of  all  the  go-ds.  At  Ur,  which 
in  an  early  period  was  the  seat  of  a  powerful  Sumerian 
dynasty,  the  patron  of  the  place  was  Sin,  a  personifica- 
tion of  the  moon,  pictured  as  an  old  man  with  a  flowing 
beard  and  sailing  along  the  heavens  in  a  bark.  Wisdom 
was  associated  with  him  and  he  too  becomes  in  one  of 
the  systems  that  arose  the  "  father  "of  the  gods  and  the 
guide  of  the  universe.  Ut  or  Babbar  at  Larsa  is  again 
a  sun-god,  as  is  Shamash  in  the  Akkadian  centre  Sippar 
to  the  north.  Justice  is  one  of  the  chief  attributes  as- 
signed to  him.  He  is  described  as  the  great  judge  who 
brings  wrongdoings  to  light  and  saves  the  innocent  from 
the  machinations  of  the  wicked. 

In  the  later  period  Marduk,  again  a  solar  deity,  as 
the  patron  of  the  city  of  Babylon,  becomes  supreme  over 
all  the  gods  when  Babylon  rises  to  the  position  of  the 
capital  of  the  Babylonian  empire.  With  this  step,  finally 
achieved  by  the  great  Hammurapi  (2123-2081  B.C.),  the 
attributes  of  all  the  other  great  gods  are  bestowed  on 
Marduk,  and  such  tendencies  toward  a  monotheistic  con- 

56 


RELIGION  OF  BABYLONIA  AND  ASSYRIA 

ception  of  the  universe  as  are  to  be  noted  in  the  course  of 
the  development  o*f  the  Babylonian  religion  gather  about 
his  cult.  The  proximity  of  Borsippa  to  Babylon  (lying 
almost  opposite  the  latter)  brought  about  a  close  associa- 
tion between  Marduk  and  the  local  deity  of  Borsippa, 
known  as  Nabu,  who  may  have  been  originally  a  personi- 
fication of  the  watery  element — perhaps  the  god  of  the 
Euphrates  more  particularly.  The  relationship  between 
Marduk  and  Nabu  is  pictured  as  that  of  father  to  son, 
and  to  such  an  extent  are  the  original  traits  of  Nabu 
obscured  that  he  becomes  merely  a  somewhat  pale  reflec- 
tion of  Marduk — a  junior  Marduk  by  the  side  of  a  senior. 
In  the  same  way  we  have  in  the  many  other  localities 
of  southern  and  northern  Babylonia  deities  closely  asso- 
ciated with  a  place  as  patron  and  guardian  who  are 
originally  personifications  of  the  sun,  moon,  water,  earth 
or  the  storm,  but  whose  original  character  tends  to  be- 
come obscured  through  one  circumstance  or  another, 
concomitant  with  changes  in  the  political  kaleidoscope 
and  with  advancing  social  conditions.  A  result  of  this 
growth  in  the  conception  of  the  divine  government  of  the 
universe — for  it  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  growth — is  the 
tendency,  on  the  one  hand,  for  minor  local  deities  to  be- 
come absorbed  by  those  in  the  larger  centres,  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  note  a  disposition  to  differentiate  the 
functions  of  a  nature  deity  and  to  divide  his  various  mani- 
festations among  those  originally  personifying  the  same 
power.  Many  of  the  local  deities  were,  for  obvious  rea- 
sons, solar  gods.  When  Shamash,  the  sun-god  of  Sip- 
par,  became,  with  the  rise  of  that  city  to  supreme  politi- 
cal importance,  the  chief  solar  deity,  the  minor  sun-gods 
were  identified  with  Shamash.  They  became  mere  epi- 
thets; a  place  was  provided  for  them  in  the  systems 
devised  in  the  temple  schools,  as  children,  messengers,  at- 
tendants and  servitors, — down  to  such  human  function- 
aries as  vezirs,  throne-bearers,  scribes,  and  even  bakers 

57 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

and  butlers.  Again,  when  a  solar  deity  was  too  impor- 
tant to  be  entirely  absorbed  in  this  fashion,  the  mani- 
festations of  the  sun  were  differentiated,  and  a  solar  deity 
like  Ningirsu  of  Shirpurla  or  Ninib  of  Nippur  was  re- 
garded as  the  sun  of  the  morning  and  of  springtime, 
while  Nergal,  the  sun-god  of  Cuthah,  was  regarded  as 
the  personification  of  the  sun  of  high  noon  and  of  mid- 
summer. The  former  was  regarded  as  a  beneficent 
power,  driving  away  the  storms  of  the  rainy  season  and 
bringing  about  the  revivification  of  nature  in  the  spring, 
the  latter  as  a  destructive  power,  bringing  suffering,  dis- 
ease and  death  to  mankind  through  the  scorching  heat 
and  drought  of  the  mid-summer  season. 

It  thus  happens  that  a  widely  diffused  polytheism  con- 
tinues to  be  the  striking  feature  of  the  Babylonian- 
Assyrian  religion,  despite  the  counter  endeavors  to  devise 
theological  systems  that  aimed  to  reduce  the  many  gods 
to  a  limited  number  of  superior  powers  in  actual  control 
of  the  universe.  Between  these  two  tendencies,  the  one 
towards  providing  a  place  for  literally  hundreds  of  deities, 
the  other  towards  concentrating  actual  divine  power  in  a 
limited  number,  the  Babylonian- Assyrian  religion  runs  its 
course.  The  former  tendency  leads  further  towards 
recognizing,  besides  hundreds  of  deities,  a  large  number 
of  minor  divine  beings,  demons  pictured  in  human  or 
animal  form  to  whom  diseases  and  all  kinds  of  mishaps 
are  assigned.  We  shall  see  presently  how  this  belief 
led  to  divination  practices  of  all  kinds,  which  form  a 
very  prominent  part  of  the  practical  religion.  The  latter 
tendency  has  its  outcome  in  the  division  of  divine  gov- 
ernment among  three  powers.  There  are  several  groups 
of  such  triads.  Foremost  stands  a  triad  composed  of 
Anu,  to  whom  the  control  of  the  heavens  is  assigned; 
Enlil,  who  rules  the  earth  and  the  atmosphere  above  it, 
and  Ea,  who  represents  the  watery  element  surrounding 
the  earth,  and  on  which  the  earth  is  supposed  to  float 

58 


RELIGION  OF  BABYLONIA  AND  ASSYRIA 

like  a  rubber  ball.  In  the  case  of  all  three  gods  all  local 
limitations  have  entirely  disappeared,  as  have  all  traces 
of  the  specific  power  of  nature  originally  personified  by 
each  of  them.  In  fact,  they  have  beco>rne  almost  abstrac- 
tions, representing  or  symbolizing  three  divisions  of  the 
visible  universe.  The  triad  reminds  one  of  the  injunction 
added  to  the  second  of  the  Biblical  ten  "  Wo-rds,"  not  to 
make  any  image  for  worship  of  anything  in  the  heavens 
above,  on  the  earth  beneath  or  in  the  waters  under  the 
earth,  and  which  reads  like  a  protest  against  the  Babylon- 
ian triad.  Less  artificial  in  character  and  of  more  prac- 
tical import  is  another  triad  frequently  occurring  in  in- 
scriptions and  invariably  depicted  by  symbols  on  the 
boundary  stones,6  consisting  of  Sin,  the  moon-god,  Sha- 
mash,  the  sun-god,  and  Ishtar,  the  planet  Venus,  symbol- 
izing the  great  mother  goddess,  the  source  of  life  and  fer- 
tility. These  three  gods  represent  the  chief  powers  upon 
which  man  is  dependent,  summing  up,  as  it  were,  the 
chief  protectors  of  human  life  and  the  chief  guides  of 
his  being.  In  place  of  Ishtar,  Adad,  a  general  god  of 
storms  who  never  appears  to  have  had  any  specific  local 
cult,  is  introduced,  and  not  infrequently  we  have,  instead 
of  a  triad,  a  group  of  four, — Sin,  Shamash,  Adad  and 
Ishtar,  in  which  combination  the  latter  represents  the 
female  element  in  general,  essential  as  a  complement  to 
the  male  to  produce  the  manifestations  of  life  in  the  uni- 
verse. Around  these  triads  as  around  the  group  of  four 
gods,  speculations  were  developed  in  the  temple  schools 
which  led  to  giving  the  Babylonian-Assyrian  religion 
certain  mystic  aspects,  albeit  of  a  purely  theological 
character. 

In  general,  however,  and  for  the  purposes  of  the  cult, 
a  much  larger  group  of  great  gods  was  recognized,  the 

8  See  Jastrow,  op.  cit.,  plate  Ixii,  and  for  many  specimens,  King, 
Babylonian  Boundary  Stones  and  Memorial  Tablets  in  the  British 
Museum  (London,  1912). 

59 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

number  of  which  in  Assyrian  days  was  fixed  at  thirteen. 
So  far  as  these  chief  gods  are  concerned,  the  Assyrian 
pantheon,  it  may  be  noted  in  passing,  is  identical  with  that 
of  Babylonia,  but  for  the  single  figure  of  Ashur,  origi- 
nally a  solar  deity  and  the  patron  of  the  city  of  Ashur, 
the  earliest  capital  of  Assyria,  who  naturally  became  the 
head  of  the  Assyrian  pantheon.  In  keeping  with  the 
martial  spirit  of  the  Assyrians,  on  which  we  have  dwelt, 
Ashur  became  primarily  a  god  of  war.  He  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  ordinarily  represented  by  a  human 
figure,  as  were  the  other  gods  o>f  Babylonia  and  Assyria, 
but  by  a  rather  refined  symbol,  a  disc  representing  the 
sun,  with  rays  streaming  in  both  directions.7  The  symbol 
reveals  the  association  of  Ashur  with  the  sun^  but  it  also 
points  to  an  attempt  to  rise  beyond  purely  animistic  con- 
ceptions. The  winged  disc  becomes  a  general  symbol  of 
divine  power,  arising  at  a  time  when  the  seats  of  all  the 
great  gods,  under  the  influence  of  astrological  specula- 
tions, were  placed  in  the  heavens.  In  this  respect  Ashur 
reminds  us  of  Anu,  who,  it  will  be  recalled,  became  the 
god  of  the  heavens  par  excellence;  and  indeed  there  are 
some  reasons  for  believing  that  Ashur,  the  chief  god  of 
Assyria,  was  originally  Anu  and  that  Asfrur  is  an  epithet, 
having  the  force  originally  of  the  god  of  the  city  of 
Ashur.  At  all  events  we  know  that  Anu  was  worshiped 
in  Ashur  and  that  the  god  Ashur  like  Anu  was  a  personi- 
fication of  the  sun,  enlarged  in  both  cases  to  a  very  general 
conception  of  divine  government  of  the  universe. 

Ashur,  naturally,  takes  the  place  in  Assyria  which  in 
Babylonia  belongs  to  Marduk,  but  such  was  the  force  of 
tradition  that  Marduk  continues  to  be  invoked  by  the 
Assyrian  rulers  as  their  patron  deity  by  the  side  of  Ashur, 
particularly  after  Babylonia  fell  under  Assyrian  control. 
The  Assyrian  conquerors  did  not  regard  their  inaugura- 
tion complete  until  they  had  proceeded  to  the  southern 

T  See  the  illustrations  in  Jastrow,  op.  cit.,  plate  xxxi. 

60 


RELIGION  OF  BABYLONIA  AND  ASSYRIA 

capital  and  there  in  a  ceremony  that  involved  "  taking  the 
hand  of  Marduk  "  or  Bel,  i.e.,  "  the  lord,"  as  Marduk 
came  to  be  called,  confirmed  their  rule  over  the  south 
as  well  as  over  the  north.  The  gods  thus  recognized  as 
the  chief  figures  of  the  pantheon  and  commonly  invoked 
by  the  Assyrian  rulers  were  Ashur,  Sin,  Shamash,  Adad, 
Marduk,  Nabu,  Ishtar,  Ninib,  Nergal,  Nusku.8  Adding 
to  these  Anu,  Enlil  and  Ea,  we  obtain  the  number  thir- 
teen as  the  pantheon.  Each  of  these  gods  had  a  female 
consort,  but  these  associates  are  merely  pale  reflections 
of  their  male  companions  and,  with  the  exception  of 
Ishtar,  who  is,  as  we  have  seen,  an  independent  figure, 
play  a  very  minor  role  in  the  cult.  The  Assyrians,  it 
should  be  added,  recognized  three  Ishtars:  one  the  god- 
dess of  Nineveh;  another,  the  goddess  of  Arbela  (not 
far  distant  from  Nineveh),  and  the  third  designated  as 
the  "  queen  of  Kitmuru,"  the  origin  of  which  term  is 
obscure.  But  Ishtar  as  the  chief  and,  in  a  sense,  the 
only  goddess  becomes  naturally  the  consort  of  the  head 
of  the  pantheon.  So  in  Babylonia  Ishtar  is  associated 
with  Marduk  and  in  Assyria  with  Ashur,  although  Mar- 
duk's  consort  has  also  another  name,  Sarpanit,  that  is, 
"  the  resplendent  one,"  while  Ashur  standing  above  all  the 
gods  is  generally  spoken  of  in  a  manner  to  suggest  soli- 
tary grandeur,  brooking  no  one — not  even  a  consort — 
by  his  side. 

We  have  already  indicated  that  such  tendencies  as 
exist  towards  recognizing  a  single  power  as  the  sole 
arbiter  of  the  universe  centre  in  Babylonia  around  Mar- 
duk. Correspondingly,  we  find  in  Assyria,  Ashur  rising 
to  a  position  which  suggests  that  the  Assyrians  too  were 
groping  their  way  to  a  conception  of  the  unity  of  the 
universe.  The  thought  that  all  phenomena  are  to  be  traced 
to  a  single  source  was  at  least  grasped,  though  never  in 
so  definite  a  manner  as  to  lead  to  a  genuine  monotheistic 

8  The  god  of  fire— originally,  again,  a  solar  deity, 

61 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PR'ESENT 

conception  of  divine  government.  Steps  in  this  direction 
were  made,  but  after  all  the  force  of  the  old  animistic 
conceptions  of  the  gods  was  too  strong  to  lead  to  a  definite 
change  in  the  religion.  Ashur  remains,  like  Marduk,  a 
primus  inter  pares,  though  so  much  more  pronounced  in 
his  personality  that  all  the  other  gods  impress  one  like 
little  Ashurs  by  the  side  of  the  great  one.  There  is  none 
like  Ashur,  just  as  in  Babylonia  there  is  none  like  Marduk. 
The  higher  spiritual  conception  of  the  presence  of  the 
divine  in  the  universe  thus  encountered  decided  limita- 
tions, and  despite  considerable  speculation  of  a  relatively 
advanced  theological  character  in  the  temple  schools,  the 
religion  of  the  masses  remained  on  a  low  level.  This  is 
particularly  illustrated  in  the  cult  to  which  we  may  now 
turn. 

Ill 

The  gcds  exist  according  to  the  Babylonian-Assyrian 
point  of  view  in  order  to  be  worshiped.    They  feel  lonely 
without  temples,  and  in  one  of  the  accounts  of  creation 
the  gods  are  represented  as  creating  mankind  in  order 
to  have  temples  and  worshipers.     In  return,  the  gods 
act  as  protectors  of  humanity,  although  in  the  early  period 
of  predominating  local  cults  each  god  is  interested  only 
in  those  who  dwell  within  his  jurisdiction.    Success  in 
undertakings,  good  crops,  business  ventures,  health,  pos- 
sessions, victory  in  arms — all  come  through  the  favor  of 
the  gods.    The  aim  of  the  cult,  therefore,  is  to  secure  and 
happily  to  retain  the  good-will  of  the  gods.     The  god 
must  be  kept  in  good  humor.    They  crave  homage,  ar 
woe  to  the  ruler  or  people  who  neglect  to  pay  the  prop 
respect  to  the  gods.    By  a  natural  corollary,  all  misfoi 
tunes  are  ascribed  to  the  anger  of  the  gods.     Bad  crops, 
defeat  in  battle,  pestilence,  destructive  storms,  mishap^ 
of  all  kinds,  including  failure  in  business,  are  the  punish- 
ments sent  by  offended  gods.     The  theory  was  a  con- 
venient one,  for  it  shifted  the  responsibility  from  one's 

62 


RELIGION  OF  BABYLONIA  AND  ASSYRIA 

own  shoulders  for  ill-fortune  and  placed  it  on  the  gods, 
but  on  the  other  hand  there  was  also  some  reason  for  the 
anger  of  the  superior  powers,  albeit  one  was  not  always 
able  to  fathom  it. 

This  theory  of  the  alternate  favor  and  anger  of  the 
gods  formed  the  basis  of  religious  ethics  as  well ;  it  domi- 
nates the  view  taken  of  sin,  for  sin  meant  the  commission 
of  an  act  or  an  omission  of  one,  resulting  in  arousing  the 
anger  of  some  deity.  Such  an  omission  might  consist  in 
not  bringing  tribute  or  in  not  asking  for  his  assistance  in 
any  undertaking,  while  the  commission  might  be  an  error 
in  pronouncing  certain  formulae  or  a  mistake  in  the  per- 
formance of  some  religious  rite. 

By  the  side  of  such  acts  or  misdeeds,  not  involving  a 
breach  of  ethics  from  our  point  of  view,  there  were  also 
actual  transgressions,  such  as  lying,  cheating,  stealing, 
adultery,  treachery,  cruelty,  failure  to  show  proper  con- 
sideration for  one's  parents  or  for  one's  fellows  or  neglect 
of  other  duties  that  would  arouse  the  displeasure  of  a  god. 
The  genuine  ethical  element  thus  enters  into  the  religion, 
but  it  is  characteristic  of  the  status  of  the  religion  that 
down  to  the  latest  period  no  distinction  is  made  between 
an  ethical  misdeed  and  a  purely  ritualistic  transgression 
or  omission.9  The  appeal  to  the  gods  was  made  by  cer- 
tain acts  and  rites,  more  or  less  symbolical,  accompanied 
by  the  recital  of  certain  formulas  supposed  to  have  the 
power  of  making  a  direct  appeal  either  for  the  manifesta- 
tion of  divine  power  or  for  the  removal  of  a  god's  dis- 
pleasure. The  aspects  of  the  cult  thus  resulting  may  be 
grouped  under  two  categories,  ( i )  incantations,  shading 
off  into  prayers  and  hymns,  accompanied  by  rites  to  sym- 
bolize the  release  of  a  sufferer  from  disease  or  from  some 
other  evil,  and  (2)  divination  methods  to  ascertain  the 
disposition  and  by  implication  the  intention  of  a  deity, 

9  See  as  an  example  the  category  of  lk  sins  "  in  Jastrow,  Religion 
of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  p.  291. 

63 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

and  thus  to  forestall  impending  evil,  or  at  all  events  to  be 
prepared  for  the  blow,  if  it  was  inevitable. 

The  hoped-for  release  from  sickness — the  most  com- 
mon punishment  sent  by  an  angered  god  or  goddess— 
naturally  plays  a  very  large  part  in  the  incantations,  as 
well  as  in  compositions  of  a  higher  order,  properly  to  be 
classed  as  hymns  but  in  which  the  incantation  motif  is 
always  discernible.  Demoniac  possession  as  the  essential 
reason  for  bodily  pain  and  tortures  was  accepted  by  the 
Babylonians  and  Assyrians  throughout  all  periods,  de- 
spite considerable  progress  made  in  the  medicinal  treat- 
ment O'f  disease,  through  the  use  of  numerous  drugs  and 
concoctions  as  well  as  observance  of  diet,  and  through 
such  more  advanced  methods  as  massage,  poultices,  ene- 
mas and  surgical  operations.10  The  aim  of  the  physician 
was  always  represented  as  an  endeavor  to  drive  the  demon 
oi  disease  out  of  the  body,  or  to  remove  the  ban  resting 
upon  the  sufferer  through  the  power  of  a  sorcerer  or 
witch.  The  cure  was  incidental  to  the  expulsion  of  the 
demon  or  to  the  release  from  bewitchment.  Incantations 
continued,  therefore,  to  form  part  of  the  treatment  of  dis- 
ease and  are  introduced  into  texts  that  are  distinctly  medi- 
cal in  character.  Medical  treatment  is  supplementary  to 
the  use  of  incantations  and  of  the  symbolical  rites,  such 
as  burning  effigies  of  the  demons  or  sorcerers  made  of 
wax,  wood  or  the  like,  or  drowning  them  or  inflicting 
tortures  upon  them  in  the  hope  of  inducing  them  to  aban- 
don their  hold  on  their  victims. 

The  use  of  incantations  rested  upon  the  wide-spread 
view  held  by  people  in  a  primitive  state  of  culture  and 
surviving  into  advanced  periods,  of  the  power  supposed 
to  reside  in  words  as  such,  when  uttered  by  the  properly 
authorized  persons.  They  generally  consisted  of  a  direct 

10  See  details  in  the  writer's  paper,  "The  Medicine  of  the  Baby- 
lonians and  Assyrians,"  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Society  of 
Medicine  (Section  for  the  History  of  Medicine)  for  March,  1914. 

64 


RELIGION  OF  BABYLONIA  AND  ASSYRIA 

appeal  or  command  or  of  a  jumble  of  more  or  less  mystic 
formulae. 

As  a  specimen  of  symbolical  rite  to  accompany  the 
incantations,  a  brief  extract  from  a  series  known  as 
Shurpu,  i.e.,  "  burning,"  in  which  the  destruction  of  the 
demons  or  sorcerers  by  fire  in  various  ways  forms  the 
chief  feature,  may  suffice. 

As  this  onion  is  peeled  and  thrown  into  the  fire, 

burned  by  the  consuming  fire, 
Never  again  to  be  planted  in  a  garden, 

never  again  to  be  harrowed, 
Its  root  never  again  to  be  stuck  into  the  ground, 
Its  stalk  never  to  grow,  never  again  to  see  the  light, 
Never  again  to  appear  on  the  table  of  a  god  or  king, 
So  may  the  crime,  pain,  anguish, 
Sickness,    sighing,    sin,    misdeed,    transgression 

and  wrongdoing, 

The  sickness  in  my  body,  in  my  flesh  and  in  my  limbs, 
Be  peeled  like  this  onion. 

On  this  day  may  it  be  burned  by  the  scorching  fire, 
May  the  bar  be  removed !    May  I  see  the  light ! 

From  such  a  jumble  to  genuine  prayer  seems  a  long 
step,  and  yet  the  incantation  is  virtually  a  prayer;  and 
the  interesting  feature  of  the  Babylonian  cult  is  the 
process  which  led  to  higher  and  worthier  conceptions  of 
the  gods,  despite  the  fact  that  the  earlier  and  crude  ones 
were  retained. 

These  higher  ideas  cluster  to  a  large  extent  around 
the  sun-gods,  though  moon-gods  and  water  deities  and 
the  great  goddess  of  earth  come  in  for  their  share.  Sha- 
mash,  as  the  sun-god  par  excellence,  becomes  the  symbol 
of  light  and  justice.  He  is  extolled  as  the  great  "Judge" 
— a  title  very  frequently  assigned  to  him — who  brings 
the  evil  that  lurks  in  dark  places  to  the  light,  whose  rays 
give  health,  who  seeks  out  the  oppressed  and  the  unfor- 
tunate to  restore  them  to  honor  and  happiness.  He  is 
above  all  a  just  judge  who  takes  no  bribes,  who  frees 
the  innocent  and  punishes  the  wrong-doers,  whose,  aim 
5  65 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

is  to  let  justice  and  right  prevail  in  the  world.    A  hymn 
to  Shamash  reads  :u 

The  mighty  mountains  are  filled  with  thy  splendor, 

Thy  brightness  fills  all  lands ; 

Thou  reachest  to  the  mountains,  thou  gazest  upon  the  entire  earth. 

Thou  watch est  over  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth. 

*****  *** 

Thou  seekest  out  the  transgressor,  the  utterance  of  the  wicked  thou 

rejectest. 

Everyone,  whoever  he  be,  is  in  thy  keeping. 
Thou  guidest  judgment,  the  imprisoned  thou  releasest. 
Thou  dost  give  ear  to  lament,  to  prayer,  invocation,  and  petition. 
The  one  in  anguish  cries  to  thee, 
The  weak,  the  powerless,  the  oppressed;  and  the  wronged. 

While  such  hymns  touch  the  high-water  mark  of  re- 
ligious compositions,  the  ideas  embodied  in  them  find 
expression  in  songs  of  praise  and  appeal  and  thanksgiving 
to  other  gods — to  Sin,  to  Ea,  to  Marduk  and  to  Ishtar. 
Ea,  more  particularly,  is  appealed  to  in  the  cult  as  the  god 
of  humanity  who  saves  even  when  others  fail.  It  is  he 
who  intercedes  with  the  gods  when  they  decide  to  bring 
on  a  destructive  deluge.  Through  him  a  favorite  is  saved 
from  whom  a  new  generation  is  produced.  Ishtar  is 
viewed  in  hymns  composed  in  her  honor  as  the  loving 
mother  of  mankind,  and  Sin  as  a  merciful  father. 

The  direct  result  of  these  higher  conceptions  was  to 
lead  to  a  deepening  of  the  consciousness  of  man's  prone- 
ness  to  sin,  of  the  weakness  of  the  flesh  in  resisting 
temptations.  The  thought  of  the  justice,  mercy  and 
kindness  of  the  gods  reacts  on  man's  realization  of  his 
own  responsibility  for  the  sufferings  that  befall  him.  In 
illustration  of  this  we  have  a  large  number  of  composi- 
tions in  which  this  consciousness  of  sin  is  emphasized. 
The  sense  of  guilt,  rather  than  the  misfortune  itself — 
generally  again  sickness  of  some  kind — weighs  upon 
the  soul  of  the  penitent,  who  pours  out  his  lament  in 

n  For  further  specimens  of  hymns  and  prayers  to  Shamash  and 
to  other  gods,  see  Jastrow,  Civilisation  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria, 
p.  465  et  seq.,  and  Religion  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  c.  xvii. 

66 


RELIGION  OF  BABYLONIA  AND  ASSYRIA 

a  most  pathetic  and  impressive  manner.  He  is  pictured 
as  bent  down  with  grief — not  daring  to  look  upon  the 
face  of  his  god ;  he  breaks  forth  in  bitter  weeping.  The 
priest  intercedes  in  his  behalf, — 

Because  his  god  and  his  goddess  are  angry  with  him,  he  cries  to  thee. 
Turn  thy  countenance  to  him,  take  hold  of  his  hand ! 

The  penitent  responds: 

Outside  of  thee  there  is  no  guiding  divinity, 

Graciously  look  upon  me,  and  accept  my  petition ! 

How  long  yet,  O  my  goddess !    Turn  thy  countenance  to  me ! 

Like  a  dove  I  moan,  satiated  with  sighs." 

h 

Accompanying  these  appeals  is  the  confession  of  sins, 
and  what  is  particularly  noteworthy  the  admission  of 
wrong-doing,  even  though  one  may  not  be  aware  of  the 
particular  sin  for  which  one  has  been  punished.  The 
underlying  thought  is  that  the  gods  are  just.  Suffering 
is  not  sent  without  a  cause,  even  though  one  be  unable 
to  discover  it. 

IV 

The  old,  however,  survives  by  the  side  of  the  new. 
Older  methods  of  ascertaining  the  disposition  of  the  gods 
are  retained,  despite  their  inconsistency  with  the  higher 
conceptions  of  divine  government  that  find  an  expression 
in  hymns  and  penitential  psalms,  just  as  in  the  midst  of 
the  finest  religious  compositions  jumbles  of  primitive  in- 
cantations are  introduced  that  bring  us  at  a  bound  to  a 
much  lower  level. 

In  illustration,  we  have  throughout  all  periods  of 
Babylonian-Assyrian  history  the  uninterrupted  and  un- 
limited sway  of  various  divination  methods  as  a  means 
of  peering  into  the  worship  of  the  gods  to  see  what  they 
purpose  to  bring  about  and  to  forestall,  if  possible,  any 
mischief  that  may  be  brewing. 

MFor  further  specimens  see  Jastrow,  Religion  of  Babylonia  and 
Assyria,  c.  xviii,  and  also  Morgenstern,  Doctrine  of  Sin  in  the  Baby- 
lonian Religion  (Berlin,  1905). 

67 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

Incantation  and  divination  supplement  one  another. 
The  incantation,  as  we  have  seen,  forms  part  of  a  system 
of  remedial  treatment;  divination  falls  within  the  cate- 
gory of  preventive  measures.  The  anger  of  the  gods 
might  manifest  itself  in  many  other  ways  besides  send- 
ing a  demon  or  a  sorcerer  to  plague  the  body.  Natural 
catastrophes,  such  as  failure  of  crops,  a  wide-spread 
pestilence,  invasion  of  the  land,  an  earthquake,  destruc- 
tive storms,  would  be  symptoms  of  divine  displeasure.  In 
such  event  rulers  and  people  would  repair  to  the  temples, 
to  take  part  in  the  purification  ceremonies  conducted  by 
the  priests  to  rid  the  land  of  uncleanness  and,  in  other 
ways,  to  remove  the  cause  of  divine  wrath.  Critical 
junctures  would  arise,  foreboding  certain  events,  and  at 
such  times  it  would  be  of  prime  importance  to  ascertain 
the  mood  of  the  gods. 

There  were  in  the  main  three  methods  of  divination 
employed  in  Babylonia  and  Assyria.  The  oldest  of  these 
and  the  most  primitive  in  character  was  the  inspection  of 
the  liver  of  a  sacrificial  animal — usually  a  sheep;  secondly, 
the  observance  of  signs  in  the  heavens,  and,  third,  the 
drawing  of  omens  from  abnormal  phenomena,  such  as 
anomalies  in  the  young  of  animals  or  in  infants,  move- 
ments of  animals,  dreams,  and  from  all  kinds  of  happen- 
ings that  deviated  from  normal  experiences  or  contained 
elements  of  a  striking  or  even  merely  noticeable  char- 
acter. Let  us  briefly  consider  these  three  methods. 

To  prognosticate  the  future  by  an  inspection  of  a 
sheep's  liver  seems  at  first  blush  to  be  as  irrational  a 
method  as  could  well  be  devised.  For  all  that,  hepatos- 
copy,  or  liver  divination,  rested  on  an  order  of  ideas 
which,  while  primitive,  was  nevertheless  logical.  The 
liver  as  the  bloodiest  organ  in  the  body  was  regarded  by 
all  peoples  in  a  primitive  state  of  culture  as  the  source 
of  life,  which  was  naturally  associated  with  the  blood. 
The  liver  was  in  this  stage  of  belief  the  seat  of  the  in- 

68 


RELIGION  OF  BABYLONIA  AND  ASSYRIA 

tellect  and  of  the  emotions — the  higher  as  well  as  the 
lower.  Functions  that  were  at  a  later  juncture  in  popu- 
lar beliefs  divided  among  three  organs  of  the  body — in- 
tellect centring  in  the  brain,  the  higher  emotions  in  the 
heart  and  the  lower  in  the  liver — were  at  one  time  con- 
centrated in  a  single  organ — the  liver.  The  liver  was, 
therefore,  also  the  soul  of  the  animal,  and  in  the  case 
of  a  sheep  offered  to  a  deity  the  soul  or  mind  of  the  god 
was  supposed  to  be  reflected  in  the  liver  of  the  animal  thus 
sanctified.  By  the  observance  of  the  character  of  the 
lobes,  of  the  two  appendices  of  the  liver,  of  the  gall- 
bladder and  the  cystic  and  hepatic  ducts,  as  well  as  by  the 
forms  of  the  markings  that  appear  on  livers  of  freshly 
slaughtered  animals,  all  manner  of  conclusions  were 
drawn.  Natural  association  of  ideas  formed  one  basis 
for  drawing  conclusions.  Enlarged  lobes  or  ducts  would 
be  a  favorable  sign,  abnormally  small  ones  unfavorable. 
Peculiarities  on  the  left  side  of  the  gall-bladder  or  of  the 
appendices  to  the  liver  would  be  unfavorable  to  your 
enemy,  the  same  signs  on  the  right  side  would  be  un- 
favorable towards  you;  and  so  on.  Another  basis  of  in- 
terpretation would  be  furnished  by  the, records  of  events 
that  happened — favorable  or  unfavorable — on  previous 
occasions  when  certain  signs  on  a  liver  or  certain  shapes 
of  the  markings  on  the  liver  had  been  noted.  Post  hoc, 
propter  hoc  is  a  fundamental  principle  in  all  systems  of 
divination.  A  single  occurrence  would  furnish  a  criterion 
for  the  future.  An  elaborate  scheme  of  liver  interpreta- 
tion was  thus  evolved  which,  set  forth  in  handbooks,  has 
come  down  to  us  among  the  remains  of  Babylonian- 
Assyrian  religious  literature.  Through  such  interpreta- 
tion of  signs  on  the  liver  it  was  possible  at  any  moment 
by  the  sacrifice  of  a  sheep/  to  ascertain  whether  the 
moment  was  auspicious  for  going  to  battle,  for  under- 
taking a  journey,  for  laying  the  foundation  of  a  temple, 
for  planting,  and  what  not.  If  the  signs  or  a  majority 

69 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

of  them  were  favorable,  it  would  indicate  that  the  gods 
were  well  disposed.  If,  however,  the  signs  were  un- 
favorable, it  portended  that  the  god  was  angry  and  must 
be  propitiated  before  one  could  venture  on  any  under- 
taking, no  matter  of  what  nature. 

A  second  form  of  divination,  also  playing  an  impor- 
tant part  in  the  practical  exercise  of  the  religion,  involved 
the  observation  of  phenomena  in  the  heavens.  In  this 
case  the  sign  was  forced  upon  one's  attention — not  de- 
liberately sought  out  as  in  the  case  of  liver  divination. 
Astrology,  which  resulted  from  this  form  of  involuntary 
divination  as  we  might  designate  it,  was  also  of  a  far 
higher  order,  for  it  rested  upon  the  identification  of  all 
the  heavenly  bodies — sun,  moon,  the  planets,  and  the 
prominent  stars — with  the  gods,  irrespective  of  the  orig- 
inal character  of  these  gods.  The  five  planets  were 
identified  with  five  of  the  chief  deities,  Jupiter  with 
Marduk,  Saturn  with  Ninib,  Mercury  with  Nebo,  Mars 
with  Nergal,  and  Venus  with  the  goddess  Ishtar.  The 
theory  underlying  the  endeavor  to  prognosticate  the  fu- 
ture from  the  appearance  of  the  sun,  moon,  and  planets, 
from  phenomena  observed  in  connection  with  their  posi- 
tion and  their  movements  in  the  heavens,  was  the  belief 
in  a  correspondence  between  conditions  existing  in  the 
heavens  and  events  on  earth.  All  happenings  below  being 
ascribed  to  the  gods,  the  phenomena  to  be  observed  in 
the  heavens  were  interpreted  as  the  activity  of  the  gods 
preparing  future  events.  Observation  of  the  heavens 
afforded  a  peep  into  the  worship  of  the  gods,  and  if  one 
could  see  what  they  were  doing,  one  could  conclude  what 
was  going  to  happen  as  the  outcome  of  their  activity. 
In  contrast  to  liver  divination  which  rested  on  primitive 
beliefs,  astrology  was  a  form  of  divination  that  resulted 
from  an  intellectual  advance  which  led  man  to  the  study 
of  movements  in  the  heavens.  Astrology  was  thus  an 
outcome  of  the  science  of  the  day,  though  it  developed 

70 


RELIGION  OF  BABYLONIA  AND  ASSYRIA 

into  a  pseudo-science.  Even  when  astronomy  arose  as 
an  independent  and  purely  scientific  study,  astrology  or 
the  interpretation  of  heavenly  phenomena  with  reference 
to  man's  condition  and  fate  on  earth  continued  to  be 
cultivated;  and  it  was  not  till  we  reach  the  threshold 
of  modern  science  that  the  partnership  between  the  two  is 
dissolved.  Greek  and  mediaeval  astrology  reverts  to  the 
system  evolved  in  the  Babylonian  temples  for  connecting 
the  activities  of  the  gods  in  heaven  with  events  on  earth 
directly  affecting  man's  welfare. 

This  system  was  again  based  as  in  the  case  of  liver 
divination  on  two  leading  principles,  (i)  association  of 
ideas,  (2)  observation  of  what  actually  happened,  fol- 
lowing upon  certain  phenomena  in  the  heavens,  or  upon 
the  appearance  and  relative  position  to  one  another  of 
the  heavenly  bodies — more  particularly  of  the  moon  and 
the  five  planets.  So,  for  example,  obscurations  of  the 
moon  or  of  a  part  of  it  were  by  a  natural  association  gen- 
erally regarded  as  unfavorable  signs.  The  "  transition  " 
periods  in  the  phases  of  the  moon  were  particularly  noted. 
Since  down  to  the  neo-Babylonian  period  the  Babylon- 
ians had  no  means  of  calculating  the  exact  period  of  the 
appearance  of  the  new  moon  or  of  the  time  of  full  moon 
or  of  the  disappearance  of  the  moon  at  the  end  of  each 
month,  what  to  a  people  depending  entirely  upon  em- 
pirical observation  seemed  a  too  early  or  too  belated  ap- 
pearance of  the  new  crescent  or  of  the  full  moon  or  of  its 
disappearance  at  the  end  of  the  month  would  assume  great 
importance.  Again,  by  a  natural  association  of  ideas,  a 
too  early  or  a  too  belated  appearance  or  disappearance 
would  be  on  the  whole  unfavorable,  while  the  normal  or 
expected  would  be  favorable.  The  same  was  true  with  the 
movements  of  the  planets  and  more  particularly  their  ap- 
pearance at  any  given  moment — whether  bright  or  dull,  as 
well  as  their  exact  position  in  the  heavens.  In  the  case  of 
the  sun  and  moon  there  were  other  kinds  of  phenomena, 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

such  as  halos,  spots,  peculiar  colors  and  various  forms 
of  obscurations,  besides  actual  eclipses.  The  sphere  of 
observation  was  extended  to  the  formation  and  color  of 
the  clouds,  to  the  character  of  storms,  to  the  number  of 
thunderclaps  in  a  storm,  to  the  course  and  the  brilliancy 
of  lightning  flashes,  to  rainbows  and  much  more  of  the 
like.  In  time  the  field  of  observation  thus  grew  into 
enormous  proportions,  as  is  shown  by  the  hundreds  upon 
hundreds  of  clay  tablets  grouped  into  series  and  detailing 
in  a  more  or  less  methodical  arrangement  all  kinds  of 
phenomena  with  the  interpretation  attached.13 

A  third  miscellaneous  division  of  the  almost  boundless 
field  of  divination  was  formed  by  the  importance  attached 
to  all  manner  of  striking  and  abnormal  phenomena  in 
the  case  of  anomalies,  in  infants  or  animals,  at  the  time 
of  birth,14  to  the  flight  of  birds,  to  the  movements  of  ser- 
pents, dogs,  sheep,  swine,  ravens,  locusts,  roaches,  etc.,  to 
strange  mishaps  and  encounters,  to  dreams,  to  the  action 
of  flames.  In  short,  almost  any  occurrence  that  deviated 
from  the  normal  was  regarded  as  an  omen;  it  portended 
something  and  it  was  the  business  of  the  diviner  to  whom 
people  would  come  with  their  inquiries  to  be  ready  with 
an  interpretation.  The  upshot  was  that  the  people  felt 
themselves  hemmed  in  by  the  many  superstitions  to  which 
they  clung,  though  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  not  all 
of  the  vast  territory  of  divination  lore  was  embodied  in 
the  official  cult.  This  was  restricted  to  liver  divination, 
to  astrology  and  in  some  measure  to  dreams  and  ex- 
traordinary happenings,  which  had  a  bearing  on  the  gen- 
eral welfare.  The  interpretations  in  all  such  cases  bore 
on  matters  of  general  concern,  the  crops,  pestilence,  re- 
bellion, invasion  and  defeat.  Only  in  so  far  as  what 
happened  to  the  king  or  to  members  of  the  royal  family 

MSee  for  copious  specimens  in  the  author's  (German)  work,  Die 
Religion  Bdbyloniens  und  Assyriens,  vol.  ii,  c.  xix-xx. 

14  See  a  monograph  by  the  writer,  "  Babylonian-Assyrian  Birth 
Omens  and  their  Cultural  Significance"  (Giessen,  1914). 

72 


RELIGION  OF  BABYLONIA  AND  ASSYRIA 

was  looked  upon  as  an  omen  for  the  country  at  large 
because  of  the  special  position  accorded  to  the  rulers  by 
virtue  of  their  standing  closer  to  the  gods  than  the  rest 
of  the  population,  did  the  individual  play  any  part  in  the 
official  cult. 

Included  in  the  cult  was  the  observation  of  numerous 
festivals  in  honor  of  the  gods.  Each  divinity  appears  to 
have  had  a  series  of  special  days  during  the  year  set  aside 
for  one  reason  or  the  other,  on  which  occasions  sacrifices 
would  be  offered  in  the  temples,  accompanied  by  the 
singing  of  hymns  or  the  recital  of  litanies.  The  festivals 
were  not  always  joyous  in  character.  Indeed,  there  was 
to  most  oi  them  an  undercurrent  of  sombreness.  Com- 
ing usually  at  transition  periods,  the  gods  were  implored 
to  be  favorably  disposed  in  the  impending  seasonal 
changes.  This  sombre  character  was  naturally  more  pro- 
nounced when  misfortune  threatened. 

If,  in  conclusion,  the  question  be  raised  as  to  the  influ- 
ence which  the  religion  with  its  elaborate  form  of  divina- 
tion, with  its  variegated  incantation  ritual,  its  festivals 
and  special  occasions,  its  days  of  contrition  and  days  of 
thanksgiving,  exercised  on  the  life  of  the  people,  the  gen- 
eral verdict  must  be  given  that  the  ethical  ideals,  as  voiced 
in  the  extensive  religious  literature,  in  the  myths  of  which 
we  have  a  considerable  number,15  in  creation  and  deluge 
tales,16  in  the  exploits  of  heroes,  human  but  with  semi- 
divine  traits,17  are  relatively  high.  Obedience  to  the  gods 
led  to  placing  the  emphasis  on  fair  dealings  with  one's 
fellows.  Reverence  for  the  superior  powers  upon  whose 
favor  the  general  as  well  as  the  individual  welfare  de- 
pended entailed,  as  a  corollary,  respect  for  the  laws  de- 
veloped for  the  government  of  the  country,  albeit  that  the 

15  See  Jastrow,  Religion  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  c.  xxiv. 

18  See  Jastrow,  Civilization  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  pp.  427-452. 

17  See  Jastrow,  Religion  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  c.  xxiii,  for 
an  analysis  of  the  Gilgsmesh  Epic — the  chief  literary  production  of 
Babylonia. 

73 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

people  had  little  direct  share  in  such  government,  which 
remained  autocratic  to  the  latest  period.  The  gods, 
though  often  depicted  as  arbitrary,  yet  on  the  whole 
appear  to  have  had  a  real  concern  for  the  welfare  of 
humanity.  Ea  is  the  protector  of  humanity  even  against 
the  wil fulness  of  gods,  while  Shamash,  the  sun-god,  as 
we  have  seen,  becomes  a  synonym  of  right  and  justice. 
The  rulers  themselves  set  the  example  to  their  sub- 
jects. Hammurapi  knows  of  no  higher  ambition  than 
to  become  celebrated  for  all  times  as  a  "  father  "  to  his 
people.  He  codifies  the  laws  to  govern  his  people,  in 
order,  as  he  says,  "  that  the  strong  may  not  oppress  the 
weak,  that  the  innocent  may  be  protected  against  violence 
and  that  the  man  with  a  righteous  cause  may  secure 
justice."  18  Business  practices  were  based  on  a  spirit  of 
fairness  and  family  relationships  were  regulated  accord- 
ing to  principles  of  mutual  helpfulness.  Even  the  Assy- 
rian rulers  who  were  most  ruthless  in  their  ambition  for 
conquests  and  insatiable  in  their  lust  of  power  pride 
themselves  upon  having  maintained  the  laws  providing 
protection  to  their  subjects.  We  have  ethical  precepts  19 
—little  collections  of  ethical  sayings — which  inculcate 
kindness,  fidelity,  truthfulness  as  the  highest  virtues  by 
the  side  of  piety  and  devotion  to  the  gods.  The  hymns 
and  penitential  songs,  as  well  as  the  prayers  attached  to 
the  inscriptions  of  the  rulers,  breathe  this  same  ethical 
spirit,  even  while  asking  the  superior  powers  for  purely 
material  blessings.  On  the  whole,  the  verdict  must  be 
given  that  the  religion  of  the  Babylonians  and  Assyrians 
while  never  rising  to  any  genuine  spirituality  and  failing 
to  lead  to  any  relationship  between  man  and  the  gods 
whom  he  worshiped  other  than  that  of  a  "  give  and 

*  See  the  introduction  to  the  code  in  R.  F.  Harper's  translation, 
The  Code  of  Hammurapi,  and  the  analysis  in  Jastrow,  Civilisation 
of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  pp.  283-315. 

18  See  the  specimen  in  Jastrow,  Civilization  of  Babylonia  and 
Assyria,  p.  464  et  seq. 

74 


RELIGION  OF  BABYLONIA  AND  ASSYRIA 

take "  compact,  expecting  divine  favor  in  return  for 
homage  to  the  gods  and  punctilious  performance  of  rites 
and  the  offering  of  tribute,  yet  acted  as  a  spur  towards 
unfolding  the  best  in  human  nature.  We  cannot  go  so 
far  as  to  say  that  ethics  was  the  sovereign  force  in  the 
religion,  but  the  beliefs  and  practices  of  the  people  had 
as  their  outcome  the  creation  of  equitable  standards  of 
life,  with  respect  for  law,  fair  dealings  with  one's  fel- 
lows, reverence  for  the  gods,  kindness  towards  the  poor 
and  consideration  for  the  weak,  as  among  the  duties  which 
were  to  be  illustrated  in  daily  conduct. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

MORRIS  JASTROW,  JR.  :  The  Civilisation  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria 
(Philadelphia,  1915).  Chapters  on  the  Excavations,  the  Decipher- 
ment of  Cuneiform  Inscriptions,  on  the  History  and  Religion 
of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  on  Law,  Commerce  and  Art,  with 
copious  specimens  of  Babylonian  art  and  literature. 

MORRIS  JASTROW,  JR.:  Religion  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria  (Boston, 
1898). 

MORRIS  JASTROW,  JR.:  Aspects  of  Religious  Belief  and  Practice  in 
Babylonia  and  Assyria  (New  York,  1911).  Illustrated,  and  with 
translations  of  Babylonian  religious  texts  interspersed. 

G.  A.  BARTON:  Religions  of  the  World,  chap.  2  (Chicago,  1917.) 

R.  W.  ROGERS:  History  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria  (6th  ed.,  New 
York,  1915).  2  vols.  Illustrated. 

L.  W.  KING:  History  of  Sumer  and  Akkad  (London,  1910).  Illus- 
trated. 

L.  W.  KING:  History  of  Babylon  (London,  1915).    Illustrated. 

R.  F.  HARPER,  Ed.:  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  Literature  (New  York, 
1901). 

R.  W.  ROGERS:  Cuneiform  Parallels  to  the  Old  Testament  (New 
York,  1912).  Contains  many  translations  of  Historical  and 
Religious  texts  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria. 


75 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

BY  JAMES  A.  MONTGOMERY 

A  FAR-OFF  land  near  the  end  of  the  world — that  is  the 
tradition  we  have  received  from  our  fathers  of  the  region 
where  was  born  the  religion  of  the  Hebrews,  which  in  its 
own  right  as  well  as  the  mother  of  our  Western  religion 
peculiarly  claims  the  student's  attention.  Out  of  the  hazy 
East  comes  the  Jew,  then  the  Christ, — they  settle  in  the 
West,  and  the  land  of  their  nativity  fades  from  sight. 
Only  loosely  and  for  a  few  centuries  attached  to  the 
world  of  Hellenic-Roman  civilization,  it  disappears  in  the 
limbo  of  the  Orient.  Apart  from  the  scanty  history,  or 
tradition,  or  legend,  contained  in  its  sacred  books,  the 
oblivion  of  the  human  mind  and  the  rack  of  ages  have 
covered  up  the  history  of  that  sacred  land  and  as  well 
of  the  great  empires  among  which  it  nested.  "  God  was 
pleased  to  reveal  himself  to  the  Jew  first/'  so  the  Gentile 
convert  was  taught,  but  in  a  land  and  circumstances  so 
strange  that  the  revelation  appeared  sole  and  unique.  No 
science  could  be  made  out  of  that  sacred  history,  for  there 
were  no  similars  with  which  to  compare  it. 

Gradually  since  the  i7th  century,  when  Biblical 
scholarship  and  oriental  philology  began  to  attack  the 
secrets  of  the  Orient,  the  veil  has  been  gradually  re- 
moved. In  our  own  time  it  has  been  literally  rent.  The 
religion  of  the  Old  Testament  stands  forth  as  one  of 
many  great  religions  or  religious  systems  which  were 
its  neighbors  and  with  which  it  vied.  The  mist  in  which 
moved  its  actors,  at  least  down  to  the  time  of  Cyrus, 
has  been  dispelled,  and  Abraham,  Moses,  David  and  the 
Prophets  no  longer)  walk  the  stage  alone.  We  have 

7<3 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

discovered  the  setting  for  the  picture,  or  rather  where 
once  only  a  few  lonely  persons  dramatis  appeared,  now 
the  stage  is  crowded  with  the  actors  of  the  tremendous 
drama  of  the  ancient  Orient.  We  can  study  the  history 
of  that  religion  from  outside,  apart  from  its  own  authori- 
tative sources,  with  documents  which  parallel  them,  which 
in  their  contemporaneity  often  far  excel  them  in  historic 
fact.  The  Old  Testament  religion  has  been  confronted 
with  its  ancient  peers,  we  can  compare  them  together, 
appreciate  their  relative  values,  mark  their  interplay  and 
mutual  influences.  We  might  think  we  were  nigh  to  rob 
it  of  its  secret  and  explain  it  all,  but  as  in  the  advance 
of  all  true  science  with  each  discovery  made  we  only 
uncover  a  greater  mystery. 

Let  us  place  the  geography  of  that  ancient  religion. 
It  arose  in  the  northwest  corner  of  Arabia  and  developed 
in  the  adjacent  land  of  Palestine,  a  country  about  the 
fourth  of  the  size  of  Pennsylvania.  Not  far  away,  to 
the  west,  was  Egypt  with  its  hoary  civilization  and  fasci- 
nating religion.  Farther  to  the  east  were  the  empires  of 
the  Euphrates  valley,  whose  civilization  and  imperium 
dominated  the  land  at  many  epochs  for  two  millenniums. 
Over  the  sea  was  the  ^Egean  civilization,  the  mother  of 
the  Hellenic  arts,  which  now  we  date  as  far  back  as  3000 
B.C.,  and  whose  peoples  came  into  contact  with  the  Pales- 
tinians before  the  Hebrews  invaded  the  land.  With  the 
settlement  of  the  ^Egean  Philistines  in  Canaan  began  the 
eternal  conflict  of  Greek  and  Hebrew.  From  the  far 
north  stretched  the  arms  of  the  mighty  Hittite  empire, 
whose  advance  guards  reached  as  far  as  Jerusalem  and 
Hebron.  At  the  back  of  this  world  of  competing  and 
eager  young  civilizations  lay  the  womb  of  Arabia,  which 
sent  forth  its  swarms  of  splendid  desert  sons  to  conquer 
and  be  conquered  by  those  advanced  civilizations.  Un- 
named hordes  came  out  thence,  Canaanites,  Amorites, 
Hebrews,  Aramaeans,  later  the  Minaeans  and  Sabseans 

77 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

of  great  native  empires  in  the  far  south  of  the  land,  all 
these  the  precursors  of  that  greatest  of  Arab  invasions 
which  was  stimulated  by  Mohammed.  Then  when  the 
Hebrews  are  settled  in  the  land  they  come  into  contact 
with  the  commercial  Phoenicians  on  the  coast  and  the 
opulent  and  martial  Aramaean  states  to  the  north,  like 
Damascus.  There  follows  the  sweeping  of  the  great 
empires  over  these  lands,  of  the  Assyrian,  the  Baby- 
lonian, the  Persian,  each  with  its  own  characteristic. 
Finally  came  the  Greek  conquest  or  rather  the  overflow- 
ing of  the  Greek  civilization,  which  gave  more  to  and 
took  more  from  that  religion  than  did  any  of  its  prede- 
cessors. It  is  a  strange  fact  that  none  of  those  kindred 
Semitic  religions,  but  an  alien  civilization  from  the  west, 
became  the  solvent  for  the  best  in  the  religion  of  the 
Hebrews. 

What  produced  this  religion  in  that  welter  of  the 
ancient  Semitic  world?  Was  it  only  a  precipitate  of  the 
best  in  one  of  the  great  religious  systems  of  antiquity — 
of  Egypt,  as  philosophers  of  the  i8th  century  proposed, 
or  of  Babylon,  as  some  modern  scholars  dogmatically 
claim  ?  Or  was  it  chance  commingling  of  certain  elements 
in  that  one  spot,  the  comparatively  unimportant  land  of 
Palestine,  which  fortuitously  produced  the  supreme 
product  of  ancient  oriental  religion?  Was  it  a  native 
characteristic — wherein  we  might  run  the  risk  of  making 
Renan's  mistake  in  claiming  that  the  Semites  were  natu- 
rally monotheistic  ?  Or  was  it  a  great  personality  or  series 
of  great  personalities  who  experienced  spiritual  truth  in 
their  hearts  and  lives  and  enforced  it  upon  an  unwilling 
people — as  the  Old  Testament  itself  holds? 

This  problem  I  will  not  seek  to  unravel,  although  I 
have  my  prejudices.  The  purpose  of  this  course  is  not 
so  much  to  give  the  history  of  the  great  religions  as  to 
present  their  great  contents,  especially  as  these  have  had 
effect  and  value  in  the  world.  But  the  survey  of  Israel's 

78 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

geographical  and  historical  place  in  the  world  teaches  this, 
that  the  religion  of  the  Hebrew  from  an  early  point  in 
its  development  had  obtained  a  definite  place  in  his  con- 
sciousness which  made  it  a  summum  bonum.  And  fur- 
ther, his  relations  in  the  midst  of  those  ancient  empires 
and  civilizations  are  to  be  studied  not  only  in  the  light 
of  the  amalgamations  which  he  may  have  effected  with 
other  systems  of  thought,  but  rather  in  the  obstinate 
opposition  which  he  ever  presented  to  them.  With  all 
their  modifying  influences,  the  part  of  those  other  civili- 
zations and  religions  is  to  be  compared  with  the  strokes 
upon  the  blade  lying  on  the  anvil ;  they  tried  it  out,  tested 
it,  gave  it  its  edge.  We  do  not  have  to  go  to  very  ancient 
history  to  remark  this.  The  story  of  the  Maccabaean 
revolt  against  Hellenism,  the  most  glorious  episode  in 
Hebrew  history,  shows  how,  despite  all  the  subtle  influ- 
ences of  fascinating  Hellenism,  when  the  danger  was 
apprehended,  the  Hebrew  religion  reacted.  It  gave  the 
world  the  finest  thing  its  politics  has  ever  seen,  the  man 
of  religious  conscience  refusing  to  worship  the  deity  of 
the  state  and  insisting  on  worshiping  the  God  of  his  heart 
alone.  Some  deep-ingrained  conviction,  originated  and 
developed  however  we  may  surmise,  along  with  an  ethical 
obstinacy  which  supported  that  conviction  even  to  death, 
was  the  characteristic  of  the  Hebrew  religion.  Later 
religions  have  shown  like  tendencies,  although  rarely  with 
such  a  permanent  history.  This  quality  has  given  to  mod- 
ern minds  a  harsh  aspect  to  the  Hebrew  religion,  espe- 
cially to  the  loose  thinking  and  light  living  of  us  mod- 
erns. The  fantastic  systems  of  Egypt  and  Babylonia  and 
the  mythologies  of  Greece  have  been  more  agreeable  to 
philosophic  and  aesthetic  tastes;  they  have  perished  ex- 
cept so  far  as  they  have  been  sublimated  into  poetry. 
But  the  idea  of  a  definite  conviction  in  religion,  with  the 
grim  ethical  purpose  to  live  and  die  by  it,  that  is  the  con- 
tribution of  the  Hebrew  religion  to  the  world.  Within 

79 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

the  sphere  of  our  western  civilization  only  one  other 
religion,  excepting  Israel's  daughter  Christianity,  has 
shown  the  like  characteristic :  the  religion  of  Mohammed. 
And  his  religion  was  born  in  the  same  region  as  that  of 
Moses,  in  the  deserts  of  western  Arabia.  If  we  inquire 
for  geographical  and  ethnical  causes  for  these  two  great 
phenomena  of  religion,  we  are  driven  back  to  Sinai  and 
the  wastes  about  Mecca,  and  to  some  stock  of  people 
morally  capable  of  possession  by  a  great  religious  enthu- 
siasm. 

There  is  not  time  in  these  two  lectures  to  present  the 
Hebrew  religion  within  each  of  the  successive  phases  and 
to  examine  their  connecting  links.  Further,  I  feel  that 
with  the  many  excellent  books  on  the  subject  accessible 
to  the  layman,  many  coming  from  the  best  hands,  it 
would  be  tedious  to  reader  and  writer  to  repeat  what 
must  be  largely  commonplace.  I  will  indicate  the  broad 
divisions  of  the  history,  and  then  pursue  a  few  chapters 
of  the  religion,  noticing  where  necessary  the  historical 
development.  This  method  involves  our  treating  the  re- 
sults at  the  end  of  the  process  rather  than  the  process 
itself ;  it  will  station  us  largely  in  the  age  of  the  Prophets 
of  the  Assyrian  period,  or  in  the  Post-exilic  age  when 
theology  and  cult  were  permanently  institutionalized.  We 
shall  have  to  take  the  Old  Testament  as  it  stands  as  the 
authoritative  pronouncement  upon  itself  by  the  Hebrew 
religion,  and  largely  avoid  the  problems  of  origins  and 
criticism.  But  this  summary  procedure  is  inevitable  in  a 
brief  sketch  of  any  historical  institution.  Greece  is  the 
age  of  Pericles,  and  Rome  the  days  of  the  end  of  the 
'Republic  and  the  rise  of  the  Empire.  Only  when  a 
people  has  expressed  itself  in  final  conscious  form  of 
politics,  art  and  religion  can  it  exert  its  influence  on 
others  and  pass  on  its  hard-won  heritage. 

My  broad  divisions  are  as  follows : 

(i)  The  Mosaic  Age,  to  about  750  B.C. 

80 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

(2)  The  Age  of  the  Prophets,  to  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem,  586  B.C. 

(3)  The  Post-exilic  Period,  into  the  first  century  A.D. 
Some  notes  are  necessary  on  this  summary  division. 

The  Mosaic  Age  includes  the  prehistoric  period,  repre- 
sented by  the  patriarchal  traditions,  while  the  age  after 
Moses  is  naturally  subdivided  by  the  settlement  in  Canaan, 
about  1 200  B.C.,  and  the  rise  of  the  monarchy,  about  1000 
B.C.  The  Post-exilic  Age  has  a  momentous  epoch  in 
Alexander's  conquest,  332  B.C.,  and  the  following  era  may 
be  called  the  Hellenistic  Age. 

Defence  is  to  be  made  for  my  carrying  on  the  history 
of  the  Hebrew  religion  into  the  first  Christian  century. 
It  transgresses  the  traditional  view  that  the  Old  Testa- 
ment was  codified  by  Ezra  in  the  5th  century,  an  almost 
dogma  which  has  been  explicitly  or  implicitly  accepted 
by  Judaism  and  by  Christendom,  especially  in  the  Protest- 
ant wing.  But  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  themselves 
come  down  into  the  2d  century  B.C.  ;  the  Book  of  Daniel, 
165  B.C.,  and  Ecclesiastes  are  typical  of  the  characteristic 
development  of  Judaism  in  the  late  Hellenistic  period, 
the  former  of  eschatology,  the  most  striking  offshoot  of 
late  Jewish  theology,  the  latter  a  product  of  one  school 
of  thought  which  orthodox  Pharisaism  drove  out.  But 
we  must  not  stop  with  that  2d  century.  The  history  of 
an  institution  demands  that  it  be  carried  on  to  the  end 
or  until  the  epoch  when  fresh  developments  require  a  new 
scientific  division.  And  unless  we  leave  two  centuries  of 
remarkable  religious  experience  hanging  unattached  in 
the  air,  our  history  finds  its  goal  in  the  first  Christian 
century,  when  the  rise  of  the  Christian  Church,  and  the 
fall  of  Jerusalem,  A.D.  70,  radically  changed  the  fate  and 
the  constitution  of  Israel.  From  this  point  we  have  the 
histories  of  Christianity  and  of  Judaism.  Not  that  there 
is  any  consciousness  in  Judaism  of  a  break  at  any  of  these 
epochs,  but  scientific  distinction  requires  of  us  a  definite 
6  81 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

conclusion,  where  a  beginning  may  be  made  by  subsequent 
historical  science.  Accordingly,  the  late  Judaistic  litera- 
ture must  be  taken  into  account;  a  history  of  the  Hebrew 
religion  must  include  the  Apocrypha  of  the  Christian 
Biblical  canons,  the  Apocalyptic  literature,  the  writings  of 
Philo  which  fed  Christian  theology,  and  the  beginnings 
of  the  rabbinical  literature. 

I  proceed  to  sketch  some  distinctive  features  of  the 
Hebrew  religion.  In  view  of  the  summary  character  of 
this  course  I  develop  my  theme  from  the  chief  centres  of 
gravity. 

I.  THE  GOD  OF  THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 
The  Hollander  scholar  Kuenen  invented  the  term 
"  Ethical  Monotheism  "  as  descriptive  of  the  character- 
istic of  the  religion  of  the  Prophets.  That  is,  the  God 
was  one  and  was  an  ethical  being,  and  there  was  neces- 
sary relation  between  the  unity  and  the  moral  character. 
This  term,  still  largely  employed,  is  absolutely  inadequate. 
The  History  of  Religion  runs  the  same  danger  that 
wrecked  much  of  the  old  dogmatic  theology  in  trying  to 
present  such  a  religion  as  that  of  the  Bible  in  arid  philo- 
sophical terms.  For  the  Hebrew  Deity  did  not  become 
one  in  the  sense  of  aloneness,  as  modern  Theism  or  Deism 
requires,  until  the  age  of  the  Exile;  while  even  after 
that  period  there  were  survivals  and  revivals  of  the  older 
plurality  or  multiformity  of  deity,  which  condition 
Hebrew  theology  until  at  least  the  schism  of  the  Christian 
Church,  while  it  persisted  later  in  Judaism  in  the  form  of 
Kabbalism.  Nor,  with  all  appreciation  of  the  ethical 
character  of  the  God  of  the  Hebrews,  is  it  correct  to 
absolute  ethics  or  to  comparative  Semitic  religion  to 
regard  his  ethical  character,  except  in  degree,  as  one  of 
his  absolute  and  unique  differentia.  When  we  think  of 
the  morality  of  the  deities  of  paganism,  we  too  spontane- 
ously call  up  the  fascinating  but  often  morally  degenerate 

82 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

gods  of  Greek  mythology,  with  which  creatures  of  the 
poetic  fancy  the  stern,  moral  deities  of  the  Semites  had 
little  in  common.  In  consequence  of  the  undue  stress 
laid  upon  the  ethical  note  in  the  character  of  the  Hebrew 
God,  the  scholarship  subsequent  to  Kuenen  has  been 
almost  startled  by  the  lofty  ethical  characteristics  of  the 
Babylonian  deities,  as  presented  in  hymns  and  litanies, 
even  in  such  a  legal  document  as  the  Code  Hammurapi. 
The  fallacy  of  the  science  of  religion  has  lain  in  attempt- 
ing, in  consonance  with  modern  thought,  to  make  religion 
a  by-product  of  ethics. 

The  unique  characteristic  of  the  God  of  the  Hebrews 
is  his  intense  personality.  In  part  this  is  expressed  in  cer- 
tain terms  and  phrases ;  thus  he  is  the  Living  God.  There 
is  the  divine  insistence  on  his  ego,  as  in  the  refrain  of 
one  of  the  Levitical  Codes,  "  I  am  Yahwe,"  1  or  in  the 
Second  Isaiah,  of  the  6th  century,  "  I  am  He,"  "  I  am 
Yahwe,"  "  There  is  none  other  than  He."  There  is  the 
divine  jealousy  which  brooks  no  other  gods,  not  so  much 
on  the  ground  that  they  do  not  exist  but  for  the  self- 
assertive  egotism  which  will  stand  the  company  of  no 
others.  But  the  unique  personality  of  Yahwe  appears 
most  strikingly  in  the  Old  Testament  record  of  his 
divine  revelation  through  history.  This  is  not  so  much 
a  revelation  of  things  about  a  God,  a  creed,  a  metaphysics, 
but  the  revelation  primarily  of  a  person,  knowledge  of 
whom  will  reveal  his  character  and  commands.  We  learn 
nothing  about  Yahwe  in  the  traditions  of  his  appearance 
to  Moses  in  Ex.  3  and  6,  only  know  that  a  Deity  has  re- 
vealed himself.  Indeed,  the  substance  of  the  revelation 
lies  in  his  name,  which  to  the  Semitic  mind  was  the  symbol 

JFor  this  pronunciation  of  the  Divine  Name,  with  accent  on 
the  last  syllable,  as  generally  accepted  by  modern  scholars,  see  Enc. 
Biblica,  col.  332of .  The  current  "  Jehovah  "  is  a  fairly  modern  bar- 
barous formation,  but  pre- Protestant;  see  G.  F.  Moore,  in  American 
Journal  of  Theology,  1908,  34ff,  and  American  Journal  of  Semitic 
Languages  and  Literatures,  25 :  3i2ff. 

83 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

and  vehicle  of  personality,  "  I  am  Yahwe."  The  people 
learn  of  him  further  not  as  the  One  or  the  Righteous  God 
but  as  the  Saving  God.  In  one  sense  the  Old  Testament 
is  reticent  in  describing  his  characteristics,  and  hence  per- 
haps in  part  the  difficulty  modern  thought  feels  in  analyz- 
ing him  in  categories.  On  the  other  hand,  that  volume 
lays  its  stress  upon  his  self -revelation  through  history — 
always  in  a  personal  way — to  Abraham,  Moses,  the 
Prophets,  Priests  and  Apocalyptists ;  the  accent  is  rather 
upon  how  he  revealed  himself  than  what  he  revealed, 
as  though  the  discovery^of  his  person  was  the  important 
thing. 

This  characteristic  of  personality  appears  peculiarly 
in  his  relation  to  his  people.  He  is  first  of  all  a  tribal 
God,  of  that  I  have  no  question,  perhaps  only  a  god  of 
a  family,  perhaps,  with  one  theory  an  alien  God  whose 
acquaintance  was  made  by  chance  in  the  desert.  And  he 
remains  always  a  deity  particularistic  in  his  relations,  he 
is  the  God  of  Israel  quite  as  much  as  the  Creator  and  God 
of  the  whole  world.  His  full  name  is  "  Yahwe  of  Hosts, 
the  God  of  Israel."  This  particularism,  which  offends 
our  modern  cosmopolitanism,  is  an  expression  of  his  es- 
sential personality.  It  is  a  limitation,  we  say,  on  the  pure 
idea  of  God,  but  a  limitation  which  is  necessary  to  the 
idea  of  the  personal.  For  it  is  of  the  essence  of  per- 
sonality that  it  is  independent  of  other  personalities,  inde- 
pendent and  self-existent,  and  can  only  come  into  contact 
with  other  persons  through  acts  of  the  will  and  of  desire. 
It  is  a  mistake  to  try  to  push  the  loftiest  of  the  Prophets 
to  a  more  abstract  idea  of  his  person.  Amos,  who  states 
Yahwe's  control  of  the  world  as  strongly  as  any,  and 
perhaps  more  clearly  (e.g.,  cc.  1-2;  9:7),  nevertheless 
holds  to  the  divine  particularism.  "You  alone,"  he  says  for 
his  God,  "  have  I  known  of  all  the  races  of  the  earth." 
For  the  loftiest  of  the  theologians,  the  Second  Isaiah  (Is. 
40-66),  Israel  was  Yahwe's  Servant,  alone  admitted  to 

84 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

the  arcana  of  his  knowledge  and  mysteries,  hence  alone 
furnished  to  preach  his  gospel  to  the  world. 

From  a  tribal  God  he  becomes  a  national  God :  his 
relationship  remains  a  personal  one,  now  to  all  Israel. 
To  the  people  grown  into  a  nation,  the  faraway  question 
of  the  God  of  the  whole  world  still  lies  in  the  academic 
field.  There  are  early  apperceptions  of  his  cosmic  and 
universal  'character,  but  these,  on  the  basis  of  compara- 
tive religion,  we  must  take  with  a  caution,  for  the  same 
powers  are  attributed  by  the  pious  Babylonian  to  many 
a  god,  almost  in  the  same  breath.  And  to  avoid  pro- 
longed argument,  I  must  avoid  depending  on  these  early 
assertions.  The  reform  of  the  religion  of  Northern 
Israel,  known  under  Elijah's  name,  in  the  Qth  century, 
consisted  only  in  the  expurgation  of  the  intruded  worship 
of  a  foreign  deity.  The  Prophets  of  the  8th  and  7th 
centuries  concerned  themselves  with  the  elimination  of  the 
polytheistic  and  immoral  Baalism  of  Canaan.  Their 
interest  lay  in  establishing  him  as  sole  deity  for  Israel, 
and  that  meant  on  Palestinian  soil,  for  other  than  Yahwe's 
soil  was  unclean  and  profane,  unconsecrated  by  his  pres- 
ence (e.g.,  Amos,  7 :  17).  The  dispersion  of  the  Exile  and 
the  spiritual  discovery  of  their  God's  presence  in  unclean 
lands,  developing  the  implications  rather  than  explicit 
doctrines  of  the  Prophets,  gave  Israel  its  first  absolute  idea 
of  the  World-God.  The  Church  after  the  Exile  appears 
to  our  taste  to  have  sadly  degenerated  from  the  Prophets 
by  its  accent  on  holiness.  Yet  it  remained  true  to  the 
core  of  Israel's  spiritual  development,  because  that  idea 
of  holiness  was  an  expression  of  the  personality  of  God 
and  of  Israel's  sole  intimacy  with  him.  For  the  idea  of 
holiness  is  not  only  a  taboo  doctrine;  it  may  fall  into 
the  utter  mechanical  and  become  magic,  but  it  is  con- 
sonant with  the  highest  spiritual  religion.  To  the  devout 
mind  holiness  is  the  aura  of  the  divine  presence,  into 
which  only  the  consecrated  can  enter.  The  New  Testa- 

85 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

ment  word  hagios,  "  holy,  saint,"  retains  the  antique 
notion,  and  it  is  not  there  primarily  an  ethical  term. 

Further,  this  characteristic  of  personality  appears  not 
merely  in  the  relation  of  Yahwe  to  the  nation  as  a  whole, 
which  relation  must  have  remained  psychologically  im- 
personal, except  so  far  as  it  was  mediated  by  the  officers 
of  religion,  king  and  seer  and  priest.  From  the  beginning 
to  the  end  of  the  Old  Testament  we  have  the  stories  of 
the  divine  communication  with  persons  apart  from  sacred 
office.  Israel  is  not  descended  from  a  race  of  priests — 
as  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  makes  the  point ;  Abraham 
was  an  old-fashioned  Sheich.  That  Moses  possessed  his 
revelation  through  some  other  right  than  birth  is  pre- 
sented by  the  fiction  of  the  Scriptures  that  the  hierarchy 
was  descended  not  from  him  but  his  brother.  Only  two 
kings  appear  as  organs  of  revelation,  David  and  Solo- 
mon, although  the  royal  right  thereto,  as  in  the  pagan 
religions,  was  doubtless  professionally  claimed;  this  ap- 
pears from  the  Royal  Psalms  and  in  the  pretensions  of 
Simon  Maccabee.  But  Yahwe  worked  through  grace  not 
by  privilege,  even  as  in  the  Patriarchal  history  he  chose 
the  younger  sons  by  his  arbitrary  choice.  He  spoke  by 
the  child  Samuel  to  the  priest  Eli;  he  took  Amos  from 
following  the  sheep,  and  the  priest  Jeremiah  when  he  was 
still  too  young  to  officiate  and  one  of  a  degraded  family. 
It  is  only  with  the  Exile  that  the  priest  becomes  the 
prophet,  and  then  comes  the  decadence  of  prophecy.  But 
even  after  this  the  priest  is  replaced  by  the  authority 
of  the  Wise  Man  and  then  of  the  Rabbi,  and  Judaism 
still  is  ruled  by  the  intellectuals  of  the  democracy. 
The  mediation  of  the  Hebrew  religion  has  been  made 
through  revelation  to  the  individual — into  which  no 
science  can  pry. 

This  unique  personal  relation  with  Israel,  whose 
dogma  was,  "  Him  alone  shalt  thou  serve,"  is  the  founda- 
tion of  Israel's  monotheism.  That  result  sprang  out  of 

86 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

Israel's  spiritual  experience  with  its  one  God,  not  from 
a  philosophical  or  political  monism,  as  has  been  the  his- 
tory with  henotheisms  and  monotheisms.  What  we  may 
call  the  credal  statements  of  Israel's  faith  show  its  con- 
trast with  anything  like  absolute  monotheism,  and  this 
difference  must  be  recognized  in  order  to  avoid  the  ap- 
parent antinomies  of  Hebrew  theology.  Compare  the 
First  Commandment  of  the  Decalogue,  "  Thou  shalt  have 
no  other  gods  but  me,"  with  the  Mohammedan  con- 
fession, "  There  is  no  God  but  God,"  and  you  observe 
the  lack  of  absolute  monotheism  in  the  Hebrew  religion. 
To  this  day  the  complete  statement  of  Israel's  faith  is 
the  so-called  Shema,  "  Hear,  O  Israel :  Yahwe  thy  God 
is  one  Yahwe  "  (Deut.  6:4),  but  this  was  in  its  origin  the 
denial  of  the  local  Baalism  of  Canaan  which  divided  the 
national  God  into  as  many  deities  as  there  were  local 
shrines — like  the  competitive  Madonnas  of  a  Latin  coun- 
try ;  so  Jeremiah  indignantly  exclaimed :  "  According  to 
the  number  of  thy  cities  are  thy  gods,  O  Judah  "  (Jer. 
2:28).  Yet  Israel's  over-much  religiousness  was  ad- 
dressed to  Yahwe. 

Yahwe  indeed  appears  as  the  creator  of  the  Kosmos, 
but  that,  as  I  have  said,  cannot  be  too  far  pressed  as  an 
assertion  of  monotheism.  Numerous  passages  reveal 
the  admission  of  other  gods  and  assume  the  legitimacy 
of  their  worship  in  .their  own  lands.  David  reproaches 
Saul  for  driving  him  into  foreign  lands  to  worship  strange 
gods.  Elijah  permits  the  Syrian  Naaman  to  worship 
Ramman  of  Damascus,  and  the  latter  takes  with  him 
loads  of  earth  from  Yahwe's  soil  to  worship  withal  the 
Hebrew  God.  The  one  thing  noticeable  is  that  Yahwe 
has  no  social  relationships  with  other  divine  peers.  But 
solitary  as  to  divine  peers,  he  is  by  no  means  a  lonely 
God.  With  him  are  associated  the  Bene  Elohim,  the  Sons 
of  God,  who  are  not  angels  in  the  Christian  sense  of  the 
word,  but  divinities,  as  the  name  implies,  members  of 

87 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

the  category  of  deity  over  against  creatures.  These 
beings  appear  not  only  in  such  a  thorough-going  myth 
as  that  of  their  cohabitation  with  human  women,  "  the 
daughters  of  men"  (Gen.  6),  but  all  through  the  Scrip- 
tures as  God's  attendant  court.  With  them  he  consults 
as  upon  man's  creation.  "  Let  us  make  man  in  our  own 
image/'  and  over  man's  presumption  in  building  the  zik- 
kurat  of  Babylon :  "  Let  us  go  down  and  confound  their 
language"  (Gen.  1:26;  11:7).  This  heavenly  court, 
"  the  host  of  heaven,"  is  revealed  to  the  prophet  Micaiah, 
among  them  the  Spirit  of  Lying,  who  is  to  seduce  the 
prophets  of  Ahab  (I  Ki.  22:  iQff).  The  book  of  Job 
opens  with  a  similar  scene  when  the  Sons  of  God  report 
to  him  like  satraps  or  the  Eye  of  the  King  to  a  Persian 
monarch  (cf.  Zech.  i:  7ff).  In  Second  Isaiah  we  do 
find  practically  absolute  monotheism,  but  the  process  of 
Israel's  conversion  to  the  denial  of  polytheism  seems  to 
have  been  largely  based  upon  the  absurdity  of  idol  wor- 
ship. In  fact,  after  the  Exile,  and  particularly  in  the 
Greek  age,  in  some  part,  no  doubt,  under  Greek  influ- 
ence, there  is  a  recrudescence  of  the  inherited  notion  of 
the  Sons  of  God.  The  monotheism  that  was  possible 
even  under  the  strain  of  the  Babylonian  conquest  could 
not  maintain  itself  absolutely  with  the  tremendous  vision 
of  the  world  empire  which  Alexander  instituted.  The 
fates  of  the  innumerable  peoples,  and  with  the  growth 
of  science  the  manifold  and  contradictory  forces  of  the 
world,  could  not  be  adequately  explained  from  science  by 
monism.  The  doctrine  of  Princes  (Dan.  io:2of),  of 
Angels  (e.g.,  the  Apocalyptic  literature),  of  the  innumer- 
able spirits  of  nature  (Ps.  148:  the  Benedicite  in  the 
Greek  of  Daniel  3) — which  are  not  simply  to  be  poetically 
interpreted  any  more  than  the  Greek  nature  divinities— 
this  whole  development  was  not  altogether  alien  to  He- 
brew thought.  The  one  abiding  principle  was  that  no 

88 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

worship  should  be  rendered  by  Israel  to  this  heavenly 
host  (Deut.  4:  19;  cf  the  Greek  of  32:8). 

Still  more  interesting  to  us  because  of  its  relations 
with  many  striking  phases  of  philosophy,  with  Greek  and 
Christian  theology,  Gnosticism,  Neo-Platonism,  Jewish 
Kabbalism,  was  the  belief,  under  various  forms,  in  in- 
termediate essences,  hypostases,  which  mediated  between 
the  spiritual  and  intangible  Deity  and  the  world  of  matter. 
Such  hypostatizations  are  ancient  in  Hebrew  thought.  It 
appears  classically  in  the  Angel  of  Yah  we  (never  an 
angel  in  our  sense),  who  is  the  manifestation  form  of 
Deity  for  sight  and  sound  in  the  older  traditions.  He 
is  not  a  distinct  personality,  and  his  vagueness  is  due  to 
the  grappling  with  a  heavy  problem,  that  of  God's  rela- 
tion with  the  world.  We  might  think  of  the  Angel  of 
Yahwe  as  the  composition  with  the  ancient  polytheistic 
legends,  at  the  same  time  we  know  of  like  species  of 
thought  in  the  other  Semitic  religions  which  never  at- 
tained to  monotheism  but  are  striving  after  a  certain 
systematization  in  theology.  So  the  Angel  of  Bel  (Mal- 
'ak-Bel)  appears  as  a  Palmyrene  deity.  And  in  both  the 
Phoenician  and  the  Hebrew  religion  we  have  the  Face 
of  God,  temporarily  hypostatized  in  the  latter,  personified 
in  a  separate  deity  in  the  former.  What  the  Face,  Pro- 
sopon,  implied  is  clear  when  we  recall  that  it  became 
the  term  for  the  Persons  of  the  Christian  Trinity.  The 
"  Name  "  is  another  hypostasis ;  he  "  lodged  his  Name 
in  Jerusalem." 

In  the  Hellenistic  age  we  find  a  concept  of  an  inter- 
mediate hypostasis  congruous  to  the  new  world  of 
thought,  that  of  Wisdom,  e.g.,  Proverbs,  8,  Book  of 
Wisdom,  7 :  22ff.  Theological  students  dispute  whether 
we  have  here  more  hypostatization  or  more  personifica- 
tion or  personalization ;  the  purpose  of  the  concept  is  evi- 
dent. A  more  generally  Semitic  concept  of  an  interme- 
diate to  the  divine  action  upon  the  world  is  that  of  the 

89 


.RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

Word;  it  can  be  traced  back  into  the  Babylonian  and 
Old  Arabic  religions.  In  this  concept  Hebrew  thought 
shared  catholicly  with  Stoicism :  its  great  Greek  philoso- 
pher Philo  developed  it  with  puzzling  ambiguity  in  his 
treatises,  and  laid  the  foundations,  along  with  his  school 
of  thought,  to  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Logos.  In 
a  more  prosaic  way  the  Jewish  Targums  mediate  all 
the  divine  relations  to  the  world  by  the  Memra,  the 
Word  of  the  Lord.  Such  were  the  metaphysical  possi- 
bilities of  the  Hebrew  idea  of  the  one  God. 

I  have  made  this  long  excursion  on  the  Hebrew  idea 
of  Deity  in  order  to  point  out  the  peculiar  quality  of  its 
monotheism.  It  was  not  attained  by  abstraction,  as  was 
the  Mohammedan  monotheism;  nor  did  it  proceed 
through  a  political  henotheism  to  a  supreme  monarchy 
of  one  god,  as  in  the  ancient  empires.  The  monism  of 
the  Hebrew  faith  was  practical,  experimental,  economical  ; 
it  lay  in  the  unique  personal  relation  of  Israel  to  its  God. 
He  was  one  to  them,  to  their  obedience  and  affection, 
and  became  ultimately  to  their  intellect  the  only  one.  He 
saved  them  at  the  Red  Sea ;  he  marched  with  them  from 
his  home  on  Sinai;  he  brought  them  into  the  promised 
land,  where  he  was  a  stranger  like  them ;  he  made  them 
a  nation  and  was  their  monarch,  expecting  their  sole  ser- 
vice as  monarchs  are  wont  to  do,  but  with  a  passion  and 
jealousy  which  no  gods  of  paganism  ever  affected.  When 
the  vision  of  the  larger  Kosmos  snatched  them  out  of 
their  provincialism  in  the  coming  cataclysm  from  Assyria, 
their  seers  had  the  vision  to  hold  that  the  same  God 
would  be  true  to  them  if  they  were  true  to  him.  In  fact, 
their  vision  preceded  historical  experience,  which  proves 
that  religious  logic  was  working  on  ancient  principles.  It 
was  a  tremendous  stretch  of  faith  which  shocked  Israel's 
provincialism  even  as  it  challenged  the  nations  and  re- 
ligions of  the  world.  But  the  lesson  was  driven  home 
deep  enough  into  the  heart  of  the  people  so  that  they 

90 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

withstood  the  shock  of  the  Exile — the  one  known  case 
of  the  survival  of  a  conquered  and  transported  people 
preserving  and  purifying  its  religion  in  ancient  history. 
The  fall  of  Babylon,  the  Return,  the  survival  of  the 
remnant  in  the  dark  ages  that  followed,  the  triumph  over 
the  deadly  persecution  of  Hellenism  for  faith's  sake, 
corroborated  and  hardened  the  faith  that  stood  the  early 
tests.  Wherever  they  went,  whatever  their  experiences, 
Yahwe  remained  their  God.  It  was  the  result  of  this 
experience  that  brought  them  to  the  dogmatic  assertion 
of  him  as  the  God  of  the  whole  world. 

There  seem  to  have  existed  ancient  elements  in  this 
faith  in  their  particularistic  God  which  tended  to  the 
resultant  monotheism.  To  worship  only  the  tribal  gods 
was  practically  the  rule  of  ancient  communities.  These 
wandered  rarely  into  the  folds  of  other  gods.  But  the 
rise  of  nations  and  empires  and  the  establishment  of 
closer  social  contact  among  peoples  introduced  syncretism. 
It  was  the  common  logic  that  a  traveller  or  sojourner  in 
a  foreign  land  should  worship  its  gods.  But  from  the 
beginning  of  Israel's  religious  history  there  appears  to 
have  been  an  exclusive  demand  made  upon  their  faith 
by  their  God.  Lesser  deities  were  associated  with  him 
in  popular  cults,  this  development  occurred  at  times  in 
Jerusalem,  but  he  never  submitted  to  becoming  a  member 
of  a  pantheon,  one  of  many  gods.2  Even  when  David 
cries  that  he  is  being  driven  into  foreign  lands  to  serve 
strange  gods,  there  is  expressed  his  heart's  pang  that  he 
must  abandon  Yahwe.  In  some  way,  and  why  not  by  the 
Moses  of  tradition — for  great  religions  have  always  per- 
sonal founders — the  exclusiveness  of  Yahwe  in  his  rela- 
tion to  Israel  was  pressed  in  upon  them.  There  may 
have  been  some  theological  economy  in  the  old  Arabian 

2  In  the  recently  discovered  papyri  of  the  Jewish  colony  at 
Elephantine  in  Upper  Egypt  several  lesser  deities,  mostly  personified 
cult  objects,  accompany  the  Hebrew  god. 

91 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

religion  with  which  the  Hebrews  were  early  connected — 
the  same  region  brought  forth  monotheistic  Islam.  Prob- 
ably the  peculiar  migratory  history  of  the  Hebrews  who 
found  a  wandering  God  in  the  desert,  who  travels  with 
them,  involving  a  detachment  on  his  part  from  a  local 
habitat,  may  have  chained  their  affection  to  him,  like  the 
love  of  two  friends  wandering  in  a  foreign  land,  like 
the  love  of  bridegroom  and  bride,  as  Hosea  idyllically 
pictures  it.  And  this  detachment  of  their  God  from  mere 
place  gave  them  a  larger  view  of  Deity  than  is  the  lot 
of  the  ordinary  tribe  whose  god  is  locally  confined  and 
which  picks  up  new  gods  wherever  it  travels.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  notice  that  even  in  Palestine  he  remained  a 
peculiarly  supersensuous  God.  His  ark  was  not  neces- 
sary to  his  religion,  it  suffered  ignominious  capture,  and 
his  early  sanctuary  Shilo  was  destroyed  (I  Sam.  4;  Jer. 
7).  It  was  long  before  he  found  a  home  at  Jerusalem; 
even  then  the  home  was  not  necessary  to  him.  He  could 
endure  the  burning  of  his  house,  the  destruction  of  his 
sacred  ark,  and  Ezekiel  sees  his  glory  moving  majestically 
away  from  his  abandoned  temple.  If,  after  the  Exile, 
there  is  more  than  ever  before  an  insistence  on  locating 
his  presence  in  the  holy  city,  nevertheless  the  higher  reach 
of  faith  had  been  made;  his  holy  temple  is  in  the  heav- 
ens (Hab.  2:20).  The  Hebrew  did  not  proceed  in  his 
thought  from  what  God  must  be  in  his  relation  to  the 
world,  but  rather  finding  him  everywhere,  and  always 
ready  to  serve  his  people  and  to  rise  above  their  enemies, 
he  found  him  through  experience  a  cosmic  God.  But 
their  deepest  interest  lay  always  in  their  experience,  what 
they  had  found  in  him  for  themselves,  only  secondarily, 
and  so  far  as  this  served  them,  in  his  relation  to  the  world. 
.They  learned  of  him  as  World-God  only  when  they  be- 
came world-citizens;  but  their  faith  was  ready  for  the 
ordeal.  This  very  particularism  of  the  Hebrew  religion, 
this  particularism  of  Yahwe,  seemingly  the  very  pole  to  a 

92 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

starting  point  of  a  cosmic  and  monistic  theology,  was  the 
secret  and  safeguard  of  what  Israel  ultimately  effected 
in  the  world's  monotheism.  In  the  study  of  the  history 
of  religion  we  have  to  begin  not  with  preconceptions  as 
to  what  God  is,  but  to  follow  the  method  in  which  he 
revealed  himself,  that  is,  the  way  in  which  men  or  a  race 
came  to  believe  in  him.  Monotheism  grew  up  in  Israel, 
but  almost  in  the  opposite  way  to  that  which  our  philos- 
ophy would  expect. 

We  are  compelled  to  the  position  that  from  the  first 
of  Israel's  known  religious  history  there  was  working  an 
inner  logic  which  binds  together  its  beginning  and  climax. 
There  is  an  intellectual  foundation  to  that  religion  the 
ignoring  of  which  has  led  to  the  assumption  of  all  kinds 
of  chances  to  explain  the  product,  which  really  came  of 
inner  necessity.  It  was  Wellhausen  who  made  the  classic 
remark  that  the  Mosaic  religion  was  summed  up  in  this 
word :  '*  Yahwe  Israel's  God,  Israel  Yahwe's  people." 
This  axiom  developed  its  logic.  The  worship  of  one 
Deity  alone,  or  the  conscience  of  his  jealousy,  led  to  the 
denial  of  competitive  or  antagonistic  deities.  For  if  other 
gods  there  were,  as  gods  they  implicitly  deserved  service 
in  their  lands  and  empires.  If  those  gods  were  not  to 
be  worshiped,  it  was  a  confession  by  implication  that  they 
did  not  exist.  It  was  a  similar  and  withal  uniquely  dras- 
tic application  of  logic  which  shut  up  all  the  shrines  of 
the  land  under  King  Josiah  to  teach  the  one  national  God 
through  the  single  sanctuary  at  Jerusalem.  And  it  was 
by  a  similar  logic  that  Judaism  proceeded  to  the  sense  of 
its  missionary  duty  to  the  world,  as  set  forth  in  the 
Evangelist  of  the  Second  Isaiah  and  the  parable  of 
Jonah.  If  there  was  only  the  one  God  and  Israel  alone 
knew  him,  it  was  Israel's  commission,  if  there  were  any 
pride  and  humanity,  to  make  him  known  to  the  world. 
The  religion  of  Israel  was  led  on  by  the  same  unconscious 
logic  that  has  driven  every  monistic  religion  into  claiming 

93 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

and  preaching  a  Gospel  for  the  world.  The  same  single- 
ness of  mind  which  marks  the  home  religion. forces  it  into 
the  exclusiveness,  intolerance,  bigotry,  if  you  will,  which 
is  the  antinomy  in  every  religion  which  will  be  catholic. 

II.  YAHWE'S  RELATION  TO  THE  WORLD 
Yah  we  appears  as  the  sole  creator  of  the  world,  from 
the  two  stories  of  Creation  in  Gen.  1-2  and  through  the 
Old  Testament.  No  "  partner  "  is  associated  with  him 
in  his  creative  acts,  except  in  the  passage,  "  Let  us  make 
man  in  our  image,"  a  reminiscence  of  earlier  polytheism, 
but  a  phrase  which  remained  acceptable  to  the  late  hand 
which  finally  redacted  that  chapter.  The  Hebrew  verb 
we  translate  "  create  "  is  used  exclusively  of  the  divine 
action,  but  our  theological  content  of  creatio  ex  nihilo  is 
not  to  be  read  into  it;  the  raw  matter  of  the  universe 
exists  from  the  beginning;  on  its  origin  Hebrew  thought 
did  not  speculate.  Yahwe  is  the  artist  of  the  Kosmos, 
actually  a  Protoplast  with  his  own  hands  in  the  Yahwistic 
Creation  Story.  The  mythical  aboriginal  monsters  of 
Chaos  survive  in  the  poetry  of  the  books  of  Isaiah  and 
Job,  again  almost  entirely  as  literary  reminiscences  and 
often  given  an  historical  interpretation.  The  Tiamat  of 
the  Babylonian  legend  appears  in  Gen.  i  as  Tehom,  "  the 
deep,"  but  without  personification;  it  ,is  the  Chaos. 
Yahwe's  lordship  over  the  universe  is  expressed  in  vari- 
ous epithets :  he  is  "  the  Possessor  of  heaven  and  earth  " 
(Gen.  14:  19)  ;  Yahwe  Sebaoth,  understood  at  least  sub- 
sequently as  the  God  of  the  heavenly  hosts;  the  King 
of  the  world,  as  in  the  application  to  him  of  the  title  of 
the  Persian  monarch,  "the  Great  King"  (Ps.  48:2); 
"the  Judge  of  all  the  earth"  (Gen.  18:25).  Some  of 
his  titles  are  of  most  antique  origin,  as  the  Highest 
(Elyon,  Gen.  14:19),  and  in  themselves  predicated 
nothing  as  to  his  absoluteness;  their  content  must  be  ob- 
tained from  the  sum  of  the  theology. 

94 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

There  exists  accordingly  in  the  Old  Testament  a  re- 
markable singleness  of  mind  and  religious  equanimity; 
there  is  no  distraction  as  among  a  number  of  possible  or 
rival  powers  or  objects  of  obligation.  It  is  noticeable 
that  that  sphere  wherein  magic  is  the  opus  operandum  and 
the  cult  of  the  dead  from  early  fell  under  the  ban  of  the 
official  religion  ( e.g.,  I  Sam.  28:3)  ;  both  elements  con- 
tinued and  had  their  renascence  in  the  Judaistic  period, 
but  the  spirit  of  Yahwism  forbade  their  entrance  into  the 
public  religion.  This  monism  affected  as  well  the  moral 
sphere  of  the  conflict  of  good  and  evil.  What  was  else- 
where attributed  to  demons  and  ghosts  or  to  fates  higher 
than  the  gods  was  logically  assigned  to  the  one  divine 
power.  The  physical  evil  of  the  world  was  assigned  to 
him,  always  in  explanation  of  it  man's  sin  being  given; 
not  only  so,  but,  where  it  suits  his  purpose  to  punish  men, 
he  is  the  ultimate  ground  of  their  sin,  as  when  he  hardens 
Pharaoh's  heart  (Ex.  4:21)  or  sends  his  Lying  Spirit 
into  the  mouth  of  his  prophets  (I  Ki.  22).  But  as  physical 
evil  was  always  held  to  be  the  exact  correspondent  and 
equivalent  of  moral  fault,  this  doctrine  had  its  fateful 
result.  In  the  earlier  age  when  Israel  was  on  the  whole 
prosperous  and  the  accent  lay  upon  the  community  and 
not  at  all  on  the  individual,  the  easy  calculus  of  good 
and  evil  was  borne  without  too  great  difficulty.  After 
all,  it  still  exists  in  all  popular  religion,  while  its  logic 
is  hard  to  avoid  in  any  theology  of  a  one  God.  But  the 
crash  of  the  ancient  system  of  moral  philosophy  came 
with  the  age  which  saw  the  fall  of  the  monarchy  and  its 
dispersal  of  the  scattered  individuals  from  whom  as  spir- 
itual units  was  constructed  the  Jewish  Church;  it  was 
the  age,  too,  of  that  prophet  of  individualism,  Jeremiah. 
The  crisis  is  marked  in  the  experiences  of  this  prophet 
and  in  the  spiritual  drama  of  Job.  The  hero  defies  his 
friends'  contention  that  his  evil  lot  is  the  result  of  his  sin 
and  denies  that  they  speak  for  God.  He  finds  no  answer 

95 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

for  his  problem  except  in  resignation  to  the  God  of  un- 
speakable ways.  Theologically  the  drama,  ends  in  skep- 
ticism, but  mystically  Job  has  learnt  that  his  Champion 
lives. 

However,  this  stubborn  higher  faith  in  the  one  God 
who  must  be  withal  righteous,  so  that  a  man  appeals  to 
him  as  against  him,  was  not  practicable  in  the  mass  of 
the  religious  folk,  even  in  the  official  religion.  It  is  a 
dramatic  coincidence  that  in  this  tremendous  trial  of  the 
simple  Hebrew  faith  Persia  with  its  dualistic  religion 
became  mistress  of  the  Jewish  people.  Without  doubt 
that  new,  sternly  moral  religion  had  its  effect  upon  Juda- 
ism, although  not,  I  believe,  to  the  extent  that  many 
scholars  suppose.  Rather,  Zoroastrianism  was  itself  a 
symptom  of  the  breakdown  of  the  older  simple-minded 
faiths/*'  Judaism  equally  but  not  to  the  same  extreme  met 
the  problem  with  a  projection  of  dualism.  The  survivals 
of  ancient  polytheism  were  revamped  for  the  explanation 
of  the  evil  and  sin  of  the  world.  Satan,  one  of  Yahwe's 
chief  ministers,  became  his  antagonist ;  the  celestial  hosts 
are  divided  into  good  and  bad  angels,  there  is  war  in 
heaven.  The  ancient  myth  of  the  marriage  of  the  Sons 
of  God  with  the  daughters  of  men — in  its  framework  in 
Genesis  set  forth  as  a  crowning  act  of  audacity,  and  then 
forgotten — is  rediscovered  to  give  a  celestial  explanation, 
of  sin,  a  factor  brought  in  from  an  outside  sphere  into 
God's  good  world.  The  ancient  Serpent  of  Chaos  had 
become  a  rationalistic  snake  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  but 
he  now  again  flashes  out  in  his  true  colors  as  the  old 
Dragon.  The  drama  of  good  and  evil  is  carried  into  the 
heavens.  There  we  must  leave  it  where  Christianity 
accepts  it,  proclaiming  a  Saviour  from  the  Prince  of  the 
power  of  the  air  and  the  forces  of  darkness.  In  the  rich- 
ness of  its  experience  the  Hebrew  religion  met,  even  if 
it  did  not  escape  unscathed,  the  fiercest  of  doubts  con- 

96 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

cerning  a  one  good  God,  but  after  all  left  its  monotheism 
a  heritage  for  the  world. 

But  we  err  much  if  we  think  that  the  doctrine  of  the 
Creator  God  was  the  chief  element  in  the  Hebrew  theology 
concerning  the  world.  This  was  made  a  cardinal  tenet 
in  the  early  Jewish  proselytism  and  in  the  preaching  of 
the  Christian  Gospel,  where  the  doctrine  almost  precedes 
that  of  the  Saviour.  Cosmic  speculation  must  connect 
the  origins  of  things  with  the  responsible  deities  of  the 
universe,  the  one  God  must  be  the  creator  at  least  of  the 
Kosmos  in  its  original  plan.  But  the  cardinal,  the  unique 
characteristic  of  the  Hebrew  doctrine  of  Yahwe's  relation 
to  the  world  consists  in  making  him  not  so  much  the  God 
of  its  beginnings  as  the  God  of  its  history.  Here  we  lay 
the  finger  upon  what  I  am  inclined  to  think  is  the  most 
original  thing  in  the  Hebrew  religion. 

Where  other  sacred  volumes  are  theologies,  meta- 
physics, revelations,  the  Old  Testament  is  primarily  a  'y 
history.  And  the  creed  of  Israel  is  a  historical  confes- 
sion. One  thinks  first  of  the  prayers  and  liturgies  of 
the  Jewish  Church,  in  which  the  sacred  history  of  the 
race  is  recited  as  the  basis  of  present  faith  and  future 
hope — a  precedent  carried  on  into  the  Christian  liturgy 
of  the  Eucharist.  We  can  carry  these  confessional  retro- 
spects in  their  almost  stereotyped  form  back  to  the  Psalms 
and  the  prayers  in  Ezra  and  Nehemiah.  But  the  same 
historical  faith  is  equally  strong  in  the  Second  Isaiah  and 
Deuteronomy  and  it  colors  all  the  Prophets,  in  their  re- 
bukes as  well  as  in  their  promises.  It  is  most  striking  in 
the  earliest  of  the  canonical  Prophets,  Amos  and  Hosea: 
both  books  are  full  of  reminiscences  of  the  sacred  story 
and  of  God's  working  through  history,  for  it  is  an  abso- 
lutely false  view  of  the  Prophets  which  would  make  them 
abstract  theologians  and  moralists,  without  a  country 
and  without  a  tradition.  But  more  striking  than  this 
prophetic  literature  are  those  great  historical  cycles,  now 
7  97 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

incorporated  in  the  canon,  from  Genesis  into  Samuel,  with 
their  legitimate  descendants  stretching  down  into-  Kings. 
These  books  we  scholars  prosaically  call  Yahwist  and 
Elohist,  or,  curtly,  with  abstract  symbols  J  and  E. 
Scholarship  has  hardly  reread  the  Scriptures  enough  to 
appreciate  them.  But  these  writings  which  go  back  to  the 
age  before  the  monarchy  in  their  origin,  and  which  often 
are  the  finer  the  earlier  they  are,  as  is  true  of  all  classics, 
are  pervaded  by  the  theme  of  the  stately  march  of  Yah  we 
through  human  history.  He  is  a  living  God,  pulsating 
along  with  man  in  human  events.  And  the  earliest  monu- 
ments we  have  of  Hebrew  literature  tell  the  same  story; 
the  Song  of  Deborah  bids  sing  of  the  "  righteous  acts  of 
Yahwe/'  that  is,  of  his  victories,  since  the  day  he  came 
out  of  the  desert,  and  the  Song  of  Moses  recites  how 
"  the  horse  and  the  rider  he  threw  into  the  sea."  There 
is  a  golden  thread  binding  the  earliest  literature  with  the 
latest,  the  most  stereotyped  and  conventional  forms  of 
ecclesiastical  vogue. 

In  studying  the  Hebrew  religion  we  have,  I  believe,  to 
understand  the  spirit  of  its  sacred  volume  as  a  whole. 
It  is  absurd  to  hold  that  the  composition  of  that  volume 
as  late  is  representative  only  of  the  latest  period,  what  we 
call  Judaism.  It  is  a  compilation  of  earliest  and  latest 
sources,  in  that  sense  the  volume  is  not  one,  but  a  varie- 
gated library.  But  it  is  one  in  its  presentation  of  one 
great  consistent  theme,  that  of  the  historical  providence 
of  God,  of  a  God  with  a  purpose  for  his  people  and  finally 
also  for  the  world. 

Equally  the  writer  of  the  second  story  of  creation, 
whom  we  summarily  call  J,  and  the  writer  of  the  first, 
symbolized  with  P,  writing  perhaps  centuries  apart,  set 
their  stage  for  a  world  drama.  In  the  one  we  have  man 
as  the  lord  of  God's  creation,  given  his  dominion  over 
the  world ;  in  the  other  the  first  man  and  the  first  woman 
set  in  the  paradise  made  for  them,  with  all  things  good, 

98 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

and  only  the  possibility  of  evil  present  in  the  fateful  tree. 
In  the  two  stories  together  we  have  man  as  the  child- 
like yet  godlike  intelligence,  the  relations  of  man  and 
woman,  the  beginnings  of  society,  virtue  and  the  possi- 
bility of  sin.  The  reader  feels  that  God  himself  was 
interested  in  that  first  chapter  of  the  human  race,  even 
as  he  himself  is.  He  reads  on  into  the  second  act  and  sin 
comes  into  the  world.  But  God  still  continues  his  plan 
despite  the  sinful  race.  With  its  degeneration  he  destroys 
it  by  the  flood,  but  continues  his  purpose  by  saving  one 
righteous  man.  Even  the  dry  Table  of  the  Nations  (Gen. 
10)  has  its  place  in  the  drama  because  it  reveals  the  God 
of  all  human  history,  who,  as  Amos  says,  "  led  up  the 
Philistines  from  Caphtor  (or  Crete)  and  the  Syrians  from 
Kir  as  he  led  up  Israel  from  Egypt"  (Amos  9:7). 
Israel  never  denied  but  claimed  its  partnership  in  the 
world's  history.  The  story  narrows  in  its  scope  with  the 
selection  of  Abraham  as  the  hero,  but  it  is  no  mere  pro 
vincial  history  that  we  follow  as  it  stretches  on.  "  The 
Friend  of  God"  issues  into  a  family,  and  this  into  a 
nation,  which  we  pursue  in  its  vicissitudes  and  migrations, 
its  triumphs  and  failures.  The  gods  of  the  Gentiles  love 
success,  they  cling  to  their  chosen  people  when  these  are 
triumphant,  they  fail  them  when  these  succumb ;  or  rather 
they  live  and  die  with  the  fortunes  of  their  people.  This 
was  not  the  case  with  Israel  and  its  God.  As  he  had  no 
birthplace,  so  he  has  no  tomb.  He  possesses  a  divine 
claim  upon  them,  what  is  called  the  Covenant,  which 
involves  a  mutual  responsibility  between  them:  he  will 
not  let  them  go,  pursues  them  with  the  fierceness  of  his 
love ;  they  cannot  lose  him  or  they  themselves  are  lost. 

The  political  history  enters  into  a  church  history.  The 
nation  dies  and  the  people  are  raised  to  life  again,  for 
Yahwe  Sebaoth's  purpose  in  history  will  not  be  frustrated, 
whether  it  is  to  save  his  honor,  as  the  Calvinistic  Ezekiel 
claimed,  or  because  he  has  a  world  purpose  for  his  servant 

99 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

Jacob,  as  the  Second  Isaiah  preached.  The  nation  be- 
comes a  church,  with  a  history  on  its  political  side  sordid 
enough,  as  church  history  is  wont  to  be.  But  the  feeble 
folk  takes  its  place  in  the  world  as  a  spiritual  com- 
munity, living  in  this  world  and  not  of  this  world,  and 
yet  worldly  enough,  we  may  thank  God,  to  fight  for  its 
life  against  Greek  Kultur,  in  its  one  gross  exhibition,  as 
it  once  fought  the  Philistines.  The  volume  comes  to  an 
end,  but  its  latest  book  is  one  of  visions  for  the  future, 
and  the  divine  purpose  is  not  concluded.  In  the  full  view 
of  history  it  gives  birth  to  a  daughter  which  becomes  the 
nursing  mother  of  our  western  world,  and  both  the  vener- 
able mother  and  the  more  vigorous  child  each  cherishes 
that  sacred  history  as  prophetic  of  its  future.  In  the 
hearts  of  both  is  written  deep  the  belief  in  a  God  of  his- 
tory who  fulfils  himself  in  many  ways  and  who  still 
guides  toward  a  more  glorious  future  only  to  be  accom- 
plished in  the  heavens.  This  other-worldly  thought  comes 
in  with  the  Apocalyptists  of  Judaism  and  the  early  Chris- 
tian Church ;  their  imagination,  fed  on  the  history  of  the 
past,  would  break  through  the  veil  of  eternity  and  carry 
on  God's  purposes  to  infinity.  The  history  of  religion 
dare  not  ignore  such  a  tremendous  historical  and  cosmical 
consciousness  as  has  been  developed  in  those  long  cen- 
turies, still  so  potent  and  imperative  on  men.  It  is  the 
idea  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

I  am  not  discussing  the  historic  truth  of  this  historical 
consciousness.  My  point  is  that  Israel  regarded  itself 
from  early  days  as  a  people  with  a  future  and  a  destiny, 
and  ultimately  with  a  mission  in  the  world.  This  idea 
appears  in  the  antique  odes  called  the  Blessings  of  Jacob 
and  Moses,  and  in  the  cycle  of  the  Balaam  poems  (Gen. 
49;  Deut  33 ;  Num.  21  ff ).  It  is  by  no  means  adequately 
explained  from  Israel's  political  or  intellectual  genius. 
Neither  Egypt  nor  Babylon  produced  such  a  conscious- 
ness ;  the  likest  to  it  is  that  of  Greece  or  Rome,  but  the 

IOO 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

greatness  of  those  peoples  is  the  explanation  of  their 
claims.  Israel's  consciousness  is  due  to  its  religion,  to  an 
original  idea  concerning  its  God's  purpose  which  it  never 
let  go  and  which  it  always  amplified  in  historic  connection 
with  the  past.  In  this  consciousness  Israel  has  given  the 
world  one  of  the  greatest  contributions  to  common  re- 
ligion ;  it  may  be  called  Theism,  in  opposition  to  the  arid 
Deism  into  which  most  philosophies  and  the  refinements 
of  the  higher  religions  empty.  Better,  it  is  the  doctrine 
of  the  God  in  history,  or,  as  the  Hebrew  simply  put  it, 
of  "  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob." 

III.  MAN  IN  His  RELATION  TO  GOD 
Man  was  created  as  the  climax  of  creation,  absolutely 
distinguished  from  the  beasts,  and  possessing  the  breath 
or  spirit  of  Yahwe.  Except  for  the  subtle  serpent  of  the 
Yahwistic  creation  story  and  Balaam's  speaking  ass, 
there  is  an  absolute  gulf  between  man  and  the  lower 
orders  of  creation.  The  whole  human  race  is  derived 
from  one  original  pair,  and  the  relationship  of  the  Chosen 
People  to  all  humanity  is  stressed  in  the  early  part  of 
Genesis.  Israel  is  not  different  in  origin  or  character 
from  the  rest  of  the  world,  but  is  elected  of  the  divine 
will.  In  the  oldest  legend  man  was  created  for  the  fel- 
lowship of  God.  God  walked  and  conversed  with  him  in 
Paradise,  was  hospitably  entertained  by  Abraham,  and 
the  subsequent  history  of  divine  communication  and  reve- 
lation sets  forth  the  divine  fellowship  of  Deity  with  his 
human  creatures.  The  relation  between  the  two  is  a 
moral  one,  the  merely  ritual  element  is  in  the  origins 
suppressed.  The  maintenance  of  the  relationship  was 
dependent  upon  man's  disobedience;  human  sin  sprang 
from  disobedience. 

The  Old  Testament  religion  is  often  represented  as 
an  aspect  of  oriental  servility,  the  human  creature  cring- 
ing before  the  divine  king  and  despot.  This  view  is  based 

101 


RELIGIONS  \OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

upon  an  ignorance  of  early  Semitism  and  its  social  life. 
The  Arab  is  not  a  serf  or  a  slave ;  the  actual  Arabian  of 
historical  knowledge  is  an  essentially  independent  and 
skeptical  being.  To  him,  as  to  the  Hebrew,  kingship  was 
a  later  and  secondary  institution:  the  elder  society  was 
based  on  the  fiction  of  a  great  family,  the  leader  of 
which  was  the  eldest  and  best.  Even  when  the  monarchy 
developed  in  Israel,  it  remained  what  we  may  call  a  lim- 
ited and,  according  to  Deuteronomy,  a  constitutional 
monarchy ;  its  claims  were  not  easily  brooked,  as  the  atti- 
tude of  the  prophets  shows.  Messianism  itself  grew  up 
not  so  much  as  a  result  of  the  monarchy  as  in  opposition 
to  it.  Again,  there  is  the  parallel  in  early  Islam,  where 
we  find  the  Caliphs  reigning  not  by  inherent  right  but 
through  the  assent  of  the  people.  The  pattern  of  a  divine 
despot  was  not  given  by  Israel's  early  constitutions; 
rather  this  idea  came  in  with  the  later  experiences  under 
the  world  empires.  Then  Yahwe  becomes  the  king.  The 
reverence  before  Deity  is  to  be  referred  to  natural  awe, 
need  not  have  been  patterned  after  earthly  institutions. 

Hence  the  Hebrew  God  is  not  originally  a  king.  As 
the  ancient  names  show,  equally  for  the  Hebrews,  the  old 
Arabians  and  the  Amorites  who  established  the  first  dy- 
nasty of  Babylon,  he  was  represented  under  terms  of  the 
tribal  life.  In  Abraham's  name  he  is  the  "  lofty  father," 
in  Hammurapi's  he  is  the  "  Uncle/'  i.e.,  "  Patron,"  or 
the  "  Brother,"  as  in  Ahimelek.  He  is  given  the  title 
Adon,  "  Lord,"  or  Adonay,  "  my  Lord,"  which  expressed 
conventionally  something  like  the  English  "  Sir,"  or 
"  Milord,"  and  this  becomes  one  of  his  standing  epithets, 
but  the  name  Ba'al,  which  was  indigenous  to  Canaan, 
meaning  the  owner  of  the  district,  with  the  inference  that 
its  citizens  were  serfs  or  chattels,  was  never  easily  accli- 
matized, and  the  Prophets  reacted  against  the  epithet  on 
good  constitutional  tradition. 

Probably  we  dare  not  press  too  much  the  terms  of 

102 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

almost  easy  familiarity  on  which  the  Patriarchs  con- 
versed with  Yahwe.  That  is  more  or  less  common  to  all 
ancient  mythology  and  folk-legend.  Still  they  are  to  be 
noticed  as  presenting  the  personal  relation  subsisting  be- 
tween Yahwe  and  his  human  friends  even  in  the  austere 
official  history  of  Israel.  When  Abraham  pleads  so 
humanly  for  the  lives  of  the  people  in  Sodom  and  Gomor- 
rah— "  Shall  not  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  do  right?  "— 
he  is  taking  the  democratic  liberty  of  counselling  the  chief 
who  admits  him  to  his  intimacy. 

But  we  have  to  observe  this  significant  fact  that  the 
media  of  communication  between  Yahwe  and  his  people 
were  not  confined  to  an  aristocracy  or  hierarchy.  The 
Hebrew  tradition  in  regard  to  cults  and  sacred  castes  is 
ancient  and  genuine.  The  temples  were  not  the  first 
things  built,  as  in  the  Babylonian  legend,  nor  was  man 
created  in  order  to  provide  sacrifices  for  the  gods,  as  in 
Greek  thought.  It  is  a  strange  thing  that  a  religion 
which  appears  to  culminate  in  the  elaborate  ritual  of 
Judaism  actually  held  that  this  was  not  the  original  status ; 
it  introduced  the  whole  elaborate  cult  at  a  given  moment 
of  history.  And  when  we  recall  the  long  line  of  individual 
organs  of  revelation  in  that  sacred  history,  and  also  the 
democratic  phases  of  spiritual  life  which  have  manifested 
themselves  through  subsequent  Judaism  and  Christianity, 
we  are  forced  to  admit  that  there  were  ancient  elements 
of  great  spiritual  liberty  in  that  religion  which,  however 
obscured  at  times,  nevertheless  persisted  for  the  world's 
use.  We  are  accustomed  to  think  of  early  Semitic  re- 
ligion as  entirely  composed  of  ritual,  taboo,  magic,  with  a 
consequent  elaborate  system  of  sacred  officiants.  The 
Hebrew  historical  tradition  does  not  bear  this  out.  The 
Patriarchs  are  not  priests,  and  Amos  and  Jeremiah  deny 
that  sacrifices  were  offered  in  the  Mosaic  age  (Amos 
5:25;  Jer.  7:2iff).  I  fear  the  history  of  religion  will 
deny  the  statements  of  the  Prophets,  but  the  important 

103 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

fact  is  that  there  existed  wide-spread  such  an  unsacerdotal, 
anti-caste  idea  among  the  Hebrews  at  an  early  age. 

Recognizing  this  element  which  is  not  discoverable 
from  archaeology  and  which  appears  to  be  denied  by  the 
later  ritual  development  in  Judaism,  we  may  be  able  to 
understand  a  phenomenon  in  Hebrew  religion  which  gen- 
erally challenges  explanation.  I  refer  to  the  institution 
of  Prophecy,  the  most  distinctive  order  in  Hebrew  life, 
and  without  a  compeer  in  the  world's  religion.  The 
present  tendency  of  religious  criticism  is  to  postulate  a 
spiritual  marvel  in  the  Prophets  of  the  8th  century,  which 
almost  approximates  the  admiration  for  Jesus  Christ. 
It  is  presented  as  having  no  roots  in  the  past,  to  have 
been  confined  to  a  small  circle  of  men,  and  yet  to  have 
had  such  an  effect  upon  the  subsequent  religion  that  it 
tremendously  modified  it  and  left  an  enduring  pure  im- 
pression which  lasted  through  the  ages  with  its  fruition 
in  Christianity.  But  I  wonder  whether,  if  we  are  to 
attempt  a  scientific  treatment  of  the  subject,  it  is  not  wiser 
to  allow  some  early  original  element  in  the  crucible  of  the 
Hebrew  religion  which  made  the  soil  from  which  the 
Prophets  grew.  Is  the  Hebrew  history  all  in  the  wrong 
when  it  points  to  a  series  of  men  who,  apart  from  cult 
and  caste,  talked  with  God,  received  his  inspirations  and 
revelations?  Again,  it  is  not  the  question  whether  these 
stories  are  to  be  taken  at  their  face  value,  whether  Abra- 
ham entertained  God  in  his  tent  or  Moses  saw  his  face. 
But  the  presence  of  this  tradition,  not  merely  in  the 
'Prophets  themselves,  for  they  have  almost  nothing  to 
say  about  the  earlier  heroes,  but  in  popular  story-books, 
points  to  another  capacity  of  religion  than  that  which  we 
sum  up  in  a  devotion  to  cults  and  taboos.  Abraham, 
Joseph,  Moses,  Samuel,  Nathan,  Elijah,  were  not  the 
figments  of  later  writers,  if  the  taste  of  their  hearers  was 
entirely  different.  We  should  then  hear  more  of  rol- 
licking heroes  like  Samson,  or  for  religious  tastes  more 

104 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

of  the  tales  of  temples  and  priests.  But  their  subject 
matter  must  somewhat  gauge  for  us  their  audience  and 
its  tastes.  Evidently  there  was  a  stream  of  religion 
stretching  behind  the  Prophets  in  which  lay  in  embryo 
some  of  the  higher  spiritual  goods  of.  mankind.  This 
position  does  not  deny  the  existence  in  predominance  of 
every  other  strain  of  religion,  to  the  most  mechanical  and 
unspiritual,  to  taboo  and  fetich  systems,  these  often  inex- 
tricably entwined  with  the  highest  elements.  But  as  none 
can  deny  that  in  the  atmosphere  of  Jewish  cult  and  legal- 
ism  have  grown  up  some  of  the  great  saints  of  the  world, 
or  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  cannot  be  historically  explained 
except  from  that  Judaism,  so  we  must  allow  higher  strains 
in  the  earlier  religion  of  which  we  should  have  no  echo 
but  for  the  Prophets  and  the  Biblical  story-books.  We 
are  too  much  possessed  with  the  evolutionistic  theory  so- 
called  and  think  that  the  order  is  always  first  the  lower, 
then  the  higher ;  modern  science  denies  this  in  the  physical 
world,  and  equally  the  study  of  ancient  civilizations 
denies  it. 

I  suggest,  therefore,  that  while  we  regard  Prophecy 
as  creative  in  the  absolute  sense  and  diminish  not  a  whit 
from  its  honor,  nevertheless  we  look  at  it  also  as  sympto- 
matic of  the  Hebrew  religion.  Moses  and  the  great 
Prophets  and  certain  Psalmists  and  Jesus  are  certainly 
not  so  many  isolated  individuals :  that  were  an  unscientific 
attitude.  Rather,  if  we  may  use  scientific  categories  of 
spiritualities,  they  are  to  be  explained  together. 

For  these  men  who  make  the  Bible  religion  what  it 
is  represent  the  essential  character  of  that  religion,  its 
note  of  the  personal  God  who  comes  into  communication 
with  his  creatures  made  for  godlikeness.  The  note  is  the 
same  whether  Abraham  is  the  Friend  of  God,  or  Moses 
his  Steward,  whether  Elijah  hears  his  voice  at  Horeb,  or 
Isaiah  sees  his  glory  in  the  earthly  temple,  or  Jesus  calls 
him  Father.  It  is  the  personal  God,  often  acting  un- 

105 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

accountably  as  personalities  do,  who  selects  those  whom 
he  will  for  his  intimacy  and  disregards  the  conventions 
of  men  and  ecclesiastical  castes.  As  he  selected  his  own 
chosen  people,  so  ever  and  again  he  elects  chosen  indi- 
viduals and  admits  them  to  his  counsel.  And  as  that 
chosen  people  was  to  be  his  servant  to  the  world,  so  he 
elects  this  "  goodly  fellowship  of  the  Prophets  "to  preach 
his  law  and  gospel  to  the  world,  for  it  is  only  through 
human  personality  that  the  divine  Person  can  be  made 
known.  The  Prophets  sublimate  the  religion  of  Israel, 
but  they  are  also  its  necessary  corollaries. 

I  pass  on  to  that  phase  of  man's  Godward  side  which 
may  be  summed  up  in  the  word  "  cult,"  the  ritual,  formal 
service  of  Deity.  In  most  religions,  higher  as  well  as 
lower,  the  cult  plays  quantitatively  the  greatest  part,  in 
its  practice,  and  for  the  great  masses  of  humanity  cult 
is  religion.  A  quantitative  predominance  holds  as  truly 
for  the  Hebrew  religion.  The  Old  Testament  is  actually 
the  greatest  manual  of  archaic  religion  which  science 
possesses.  Outside  of  the  scanty  monuments  and  chance 
references  of  classical  and  Arabic  writers  we  actually 
know  very  little  of  the  early  Semitic  ritual,  for  the  Baby- 
lonian is  not  to  be  taken  into  account  as  presenting  pure 
Semitism,  it  is  too  greatly  charged  with  the  Sumerian 
element,  and  is  too  highly  elaborated;  at  the  best  this 
parallel  is  good  only  for  studying  the  latest  phases  of 
Jewish  cult  when  there  was  possibility  of  extensive  Baby- 
lonian influence.  The  Hebrew  cult  is  a  phase  of  the  old 
Semitic  cult,  with  its  origin  in  North  Arabia  and  its 
further  developments  in  Syria,  also  a  land  of  genuine 
Semitism.  As  the  cult  does  not  for  the  most  part  dis- 
tinguish the  Hebrew  religion  from  its  affiliated  rites,  I 
give  it  less  proportion  in  this  study,  which  must  deal 
with  the  differentiating  characteristics  of  that  religion. 

In  one  important  respect  the  phenomenon  of  the  cult 
in  the  Hebrew  religion  is  remarkable;  that  cult  was  not 

106 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

static,  as  in  the  case  of  Babylonia,  it  was  ever  in  flux; 
and  further  there  was  in  the  Hebrew  religion  the  con- 
sciousness of  this  flux  and  of  the  epochs  of  its  history. 
We  might  best  compare  the  Greek  consciousness,  in  the 
form  of  legend,  of  the  introduction  of  the  Orphic  and 
Dionysiac  cults.  Several  clearly  marked  stages  may  be 
marked  out  in  our  field. 

(1)  The  primitive  period,  illustrated  by  the  Patri- 
archal and  Mosaic  traditions ;  here  we  have  many  reminis- 
cences of  the  antique  Arabian  cult. 

(2)  The  period  of  assimilation  with  the  elaborate 
cult-system  of  Canaan;  this  system,  which  also  probably 
contained  elements  that  had  filtered  in  from  Babylonia, 
the  Mediterranean,   possibly  Egypt,   was  the  principal 
alien  factor  in  the  history,  although  there  was  too  much 
of  an  identity  among  the  various  phases  of  the  Semitic 
cult  to  allow  us  to  distinguish  exactly  between  Arabian 
and  Canaanitish. 

(3)  The  age  of  reaction,  chiefly  represented  by  the 
Prophets  of  the  8th  century,  although  earlier  prophetic 
men  had  taken  stand  against  the  Canaanite  innovations, 
for  example  the  prophets  who  opposed  the  building  of  the 
temple  in  Jerusalem. 

(4)  The  compromise  betwen  the  Jerusalem  hierarchy 
and  the  prophetic  reformers,  appearing  in  Deuteronomy 
and  carried  on  into  the  so-called  Law  of  Holiness  (Lev. 
17-26)    and  Ezekiel.     The   elements  of   Canaanite  re- 
ligion regarded  as  antagonistic  to  the  worship  of  Yahwe 
were  done  away  with  in  the  drastic  reform  of  Josiah; 
the  cult  was  absolutely  centralized  at  the  temple  at  Jeru- 
salem.   But  this  centralization  only  intensified  the  ritual- 
istic elements  of  the  religion,  and  these  triumphed  with 
the  acceptance  by  the  prophetic  element  of  the  purification 
of  patently  objectionable  features.     As   in  the  case  of 
the  reforming  Akenaten  of  Egypt,  the  reform  broke  down 
with  the  death  of  King  Josiah,  but,  unlike  the  Egyptian 

107 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

precedent,  a  composition  of  contrary  forces  had  been 
formed  which  set  the  order  for  the  future.  For  it  was 
the  element  that  accepted  this  reformed  order  which  per- 
sisted through  the  cataclysm  of  the  Exile.  Ezekiel,  a 
prophet  but  still  more  a  priest,  and  withal  an  apocalyptist, 
laid  down  a  typical  ritual  scheme  for  the  security  of  holi- 
ness in  the  future. 

(5)  The  ecclesiastical  establishment  of  the  Post-exilic 
Age.  This  conserved  the  chief  theological  results  of  the 
Prophets,  provided  them  with  a  shell  the  world  could 
not  break,  but  made  Judaism  a  typically  ritualistic  insti- 
tution. It  continued  the  unobjectionable  elements  of  the 
elder  cult,  restored  ancient  forms  of  practice,  added  new 
elements  to  perfect  the  scheme,  probably  introduced 
Babylonian  elements,  and  in  general  theorized  at  will. 
And  the  flux-like  character  of  the  Law  was  continued  by 
those  High-Church  Progressives,  the  Pharisees.  But  the 
same  age  which  saw  the  intensification  of  the  ritual  of 
the  community  to  an  abnormal  degree  witnessed  the  rise 
of  its  antinomy,  the  Synagogue,  the  cultless  meeting- 
house of  the  Jews.  It  was  the  centralization  of  the  cult 
in  Jerusalem  which  in  part  produced  this  pole  to  itself; 
but  the  phenomenon  also  grew  out  of  older  spiritual  ele- 
ments of  the  religion  which  the  later  crystallization  could 
not  harden  or  control.  Prayer  and  praise,  in  forms  which 
have  become  classical,  took  the  place  of  the  sacrificial 
cult  for  the  greater  part  of  life;  the  Sabbath  with  its 
rest  and  worship  stood  for  the  elaborate  calendar  of  sacri- 
fice ;  the  teacher,  wise  man  and  rabbi  became  the  spiritual 
leaders  of  Judaism,  and  ultimately  laid  down  the  law  to 
the  hierarchy.  These  spiritual  elements  kept  their  place 
in  or  made  their  way  into  the  cult  itself.  The  Psalter 
of  the  Christian  Church  was  the  hymnal  of  the  temple, 
many  of  its  songs  being  the  actual  accompaniments  of  the 
temple  ritual ;  the  theologians  met  in  the  temple,  and  there 
Jesus  could  preach,  for  it  was  his  "  Father's  House." 

108 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

After  all,  the  spiritual  religion  of  the  Jew  found  nothing 
incongruous  to  itself  in  that  temple  ritual  which  we  mod- 
erns so  superciliously  treat.  It  was  reserved  for  the  late 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  for  the  Christian  Church  to  learn 
that  it  could  dispense  with  that  stay  of  the  paternal 
religion. 

The  Hebrew  cult  is  of  tremendous  interest  to  the 
archaeologist;  it  is  of  equal  value  to  the  student  of  re- 
ligious thought  and  life.  For  in  this  religion  which 
issued  so  loftily,  whether  we  consider  later  Judaism  or 
Christianity,  we  can  mark  stage  by  stage  the  growth  of 
a  wonderful  germ,  in  part  struggling  with,  in  part  sub- 
mitting to,  outward  forms  which  descended  to  the  utmost 
superstition,  transforming  them  and  yet  compromising 
with  them  where  essentials  were  not  concerned.  It  was 
the  cult  which  conserved  that  religion  for  us.  And  in 
preserving  its  cult  that  religion  consciously  recognized 
that  its  truth  was  not  a  pure  philosophy  or  an  abstract 
ethic  but  a  religious  life  for  a  people  as  a  whole,  to  be 
incorporated  in  forms  and  symbols  of  the  world. 

I  pass  finally  to  that  phase  of  the  Hebrew  religion 
which  regards  man's  relation  to  his  God  in  the  prospect 
of  the  end  of  things,  what  is  called  eschatology.  In  our 
field  this  falls  into  two  categories :  the  thought  concerning 
"  the  latter  days,"  to  use  the  Biblical  term,  as  they  con- 
cerned the  community  as  a  whole;  and  the  expectations 
concerning  the  final  fate  of  the  individual. 

It  is  the  former  idea  which  bulks  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. From  the  beginning  throughout  it  is  a  volume  of 
expectations;  we  mark  this  in  the  ancient  Blessings  at- 
tributed to  Jacob  and  Moses,  the  antique  cycle  put  in 
Balaam's  mouth,  as  well  as  in  the  later  Apocalyptists. 
The  historical  sense  in  that  religion  concerned  itself 
equally  with  the  future  as  with  the  past,  for  if  the  past 
had  a  meaning,  so  the  future  was  in  a  sense  intelligible, 
was  logically  discoverable ;  this  is  an  element  in  the  pre- 

109 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

dictive  phase  of  Prophetism.  And  this  expectation  was 
first  of  all  and  always  primarily  national;  for  Yahwe 
was  the  God  of  Israel  and  Israel's  life  was  bound  up 
in  his  eternity.  The  expectation  of  the  future  assumes 
every  variety  of  form  and  has  been  an  inexhaustible 
treasure-house  for  all  religion  since.  Ancient  dreams 
of  a  Golden  Age  survived;  to  these  the  monarchy  and 
national  pride  gave  the  touch  of  personal  loyalty  and 
enthusiasm  in  the  figure  of  the  Messiah  of  the  house  of 
David ;  the  thought  was  uncertain  as  between  a  Messianic 
line  or  a  single,  almost  mystical  person.  The  prosaic 
age  after  the  Exile  was  content  with  the  prospect  of  a 
sacred  asylum  land,  protected  by  Deity  in  its  absolute 
holiness.  Transcendental  features  were  introduced,  as 
in  the  idea  that  there  was  to  be  a  supernatural  elevation 
of  the  land,  that  it  might  become  a  veritable  Mountain 
of  God  (Is.  2 :  iff,  etc.).  By  the  hierarchy  and  the  Has- 
monsean  house  the  Messianic  idea  was  suppressed  as 
far  as  possible,  to  live  in  the  under-currents  of  popular 
and  religious  thought.  And  when  the  world's  pressure 
became  too  hard,  and  a  new  order  was  imperatively 
demanded,  the  Apocalyptists  revealed  a  new  heaven  and 
a  new  earth,  with  a  strange  mingling  of  transcendental 
and  earthly  elements.  Daniel  sees  the  Son  of  Man 
brought  before  the  Ancient  of  Days  in  the  heavens ;  the 
seer  meant  Israel,  but  religion  turned  the  figure  into  that 
of  a  supernatural  Messiah. 

In  view  of  this  elaborate  development  of  thought 
which  was  ready  with  a  new  vision  for  every  emergency 
of  the  national  life,  it  is  most  strange  to  mark  the  utter 
absence  until  a  late  day  of  any  form  of  an  adequate  idea 
of  personal  immortality — a  concept  which  marks  all 
higher  religion  and  which  had  its  remarkable  flowering 
in  the  neighboring  religion  of  Egypt.  There  was  only 
the  ancient  animistic  view  of  belief  in  the  survival  of 
the  dead  as  shades  in  dreary  Sheol,  without  real  life  or 

no 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

merited  retribution.  The  Sadducees  and  Samaritans 
continued  this  comfortless  creed  into  the  Christian  era. 
The  absence  of  belief  in  a  real  immortality  may  be  ex- 
plained negatively  by  the  persistence  with  which  orthodoxy 
set  itself  against  all  mortuary  cults,  which  with  all  their 
comfort  and  transport  involved  superstitions  intolerable 
to  the  religion  of  the  Living  God  (e.g.,  Is.  8:  19).  And 
the  Jew  showed  his  fealty  to  his  religion  by  sticking  to 
that  faith  though  it  brought  him  no  hope  that  he  should 
live  forever.  Only  in  late  books  and  most  rarely  is 
there  any  certain  reference  to  immortality,  as  in  Daniel's 
assertion  of  "  the  resurrection  of  some  to  everlasting  life 
and  of  some  to  everlasting  contempt  "  (Dan.  12 : 2). 

The  Jew  did  not  learn  the  individual  hope  through 
magical  rites,  as  did  the  Egyptian,  nor  through  mystery 
rites  like  the  Greek,  but  in  a  way  peculiar  to  the  character 
of  his  religion,  the  keynote  of  which  was  personal  ex- 
perience. It  was  the  immediate  personal,  and  we  may 
say  mystical,  experience  of  him  who  is  called  "  my  God," 
and  "  the  God  of  my  life  "  (Ps.  42),  that  gave  the  pious 
Israelite  the  sense  not  so  much  of  immortality  as  of  eternal 
relationship  with  his  God.  The  bond  with  the  Living 
God  was  the  guarantee  of  an  unbroken  fellowship.  A 
few  utterances  breathe  this  mystical  logic  of  revelation. 
Job's  spirit  faints  when  he  rises  to  the  unreachable  thought 
that  "  apart  from  my  flesh  I  shall  see  God  "  ( Jo-b.  19 : 25- 
27) .  A  Psalmist  sings :  "  Thou  wilt  not  leave  my  soul  to 
Sheol  .  .  .  Thou  wilt  show  me  the  path  of  life.  In 
thy  right  hand  are  pleasures  for  evermore"  (Ps.  16: 
lof ) .  And  another  Psalmist :  "  As  for  me,  I  shall  behold 
thy  face  in  righteousness,  I  shall  be  satisfied,  when  I 
wake,  with  thy  likeness"  (17:15).  And  yet  another: 
"  Thou  shalt  guide  with  me  with  thy  counsel,  and  after- 
ward receive  me  to  glory.  Whom  have  I  in  heaven  but 
thee  and  there  is  none  upon  earth  that  I  desire  beside 
thee  "  (73  :  24f ).  He  is  a  soul  which  declares  it  had  en- 

iii 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

tered  into  the  "  mysteries  "  of  God  (v.  17).  And  for  an- 
other saint  God  will  be  found  of  him  even  in  hell:  "  If  I 
make  my  bed  in  Sheol,  behold,  thou  art  there  "  ( 139 :  8). 
It  is  with  these  spiritual  apperceptions  of  eternal  life,  and 
not  with  the  mere  animistic  semi-physical  notions  of  con- 
tinued animation,  that  the  intensity  of  the  Jewish  and 
Christian  belief  in  a  fulness  of  life  hereafter  with  God 
and  his  saints  is  related.  It  is  eternal  life,  not  immor- 
tality, a  continuity  of  the  relationship  with  God  which 
the  quantity  of  time  cannot  dissolve. 

Such  is  this  strange  religion.  It  abounds  in  inner 
antinomies,  it  runs  against  the  usual  processes  of  religious 
thought.  It  defies  philosophy.  It  is  the  riddle  of  the 
student  of  religion.  He  may  whittle  it  down  to  its  lowest 
terms,  finding  in  it  the  most  primitive  forms  of  religion 
common  to  every  folk.  But  it  will  not  be  explained  in 
that  way.  If  it  has  its  feet  on  the  earth,  it  holds  its 
head  in  the  heavens. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

TEXTS  : 

To  the  several  Revised  Versions  of  the  Old  Testament  is  now  to  be 
added  the  new  Jewish  Version  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  just 
published  by  the  Jewish  Publication  Society  in  Philadelphia. 

For  the  Apocrypha  of  the  English  Bible  the  translation  in  the  Eng- 
lish Revision  should  be  used:  it  may  be  obtained  separately. 
R.  H.  Charles  with  the  collaboration  of  other  British  scholars 
has  published  the  various  Jewish  Apocrypha  which  have  enjoyed 
sacred  authority  in  the  Christian  Church  and  the  other  parallel 
Judaistic  literature  known  as  the  Pseudepigrapha,  in  English 
translation  and  with  commentary,  in  two  sumptuous  volumes 
under  the  title,  The  Apocrypha  and  Pseudepigrapha  of  the  Old 
Testament,  Cambridge,  1913.  A  similar  work,  although  not  as 
extensive,  is  Kautzsch:  Die  Apokryphen  u.  Pseudepigraphen 
des  Alien  Testaments,  Tubingen,  1900. 

WORKS  ON  OLD  TESTAMENT  RELIGION  : 

A.  KUENEN  :  The  Religion  of  Israel,  3  vols.,  London,  1874. 

J.  WELLHAUSEN:  art  "Israel"  in  Enc.  Britannica,  gth  ed.  (primarily 
a  history,  but  classical  for  its  sketch  of  the  religion). 

C.  F.  BURNEY:  Outlines  of  Old  Testament  Theology  (Oxford 
Church  Text  Books),  New  York,  1902. 

E,  KAUTZSCH  :  art.  "  Religion  of  Israel,"  in  Extra  Volume  of  Hast- 
ings' Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  pp.  612-734. 

112 


THE  HEBREW  RELIGION 

B.  STADE  and  A.  BERTHOLET:  Biblische  Theologie  des  Alten  Testa- 
ments, 2  vols.,  Tubingen,  1904,  1911  (including  the  Judaistic 
period). 

HENRY  PRESERVED  SMITH  :  The  Religion  of  Israel,  New  York,  1914. 

JOHN  P.  PETERS  :   The  Religion  of  the  Hebrews,  Boston,  1914. 

SPECIAL  STUDIES: 

M.  J  ASTRO  w,  JR.:  Hebrew  and  Babylonian  Traditions,  New  York, 

1914. 

K.  BUDDE:  The  Religion  of  Israel  to  the  Exile,  New  York,  1899. 
T.  K.  CHEYNE:   J'ewish  Religious  Life  after  the  Exile,  New  York, 

1898. 

THE  JUDAISTIC  PERIOD: 

W.  BOUSSET:  Die  Religion  des  Judentums  im  neutestamentlichen 
Zeitalter,  2d  ed.,  Berlin,  1906. 

H.  J.  WICKS  :  The  Doctrine  of  God  in  the  Jewish  Apocryphal  and 
Apocalyptic  Literature,  London,  1915. 

R.  H.  CHARLES:  A  Critical  History  of  the  Doctrine  of  a  Future 
Life  in  Israel,  in  Judaism,  and  in  Christianity,  2d  ed.,  Edin- 
burgh, 1913- 


113 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  VEDA 

BY  FRANKLIN  EDGERTON 

THE  Veda  is  the  collective  name  given  to  the  most 
ancient  literature  of  India.  It  is  at  the  same  time  the 
sacred  literature  of  the  orthodox  Hindus.  For  many 
centuries  the  Brahmans,  and  those  Hindus  of  lower  caste 
who  believed  with  them,  have  regarded  the  Veda  as  holy, 
inspired  revelation;  not  the  work  of  any  man,  nor  cre- 
ated in  time  and  space,  but  divinely  revealed  in  fabulously 
ancient  times  to  holy  and  semi-divine  seers,  called  rishis, 
through  whom  it  was  made  known  to  mankind. 

When  we  speak  of  the  religion  of  the  Veda,  how- 
ever, we  do  not  mean  the  religion  of  the  later  Hindus  who 
'made  the  Veda  their  Bible.  That  religion  is  called 
Brahmanism.  We  mean  instead  the  contemporary  re- 
ligion which  we  find  displayed  in  the  Veda  itself,  the 
religion  of  the  composers  of  the  Veda;  which  is  a  very 
different  thing. 

We  speak  of  the  Veda  as  a  unit,  and  compare  it  to 
the  Bible.  But  if  even  the  Bible  is  unified  only  by  the 
pious  faith  of  the  believer  this  is  much  more  emphatically 
true  of  the  Veda.  The  Veda  is  a.  great  literature  rather 
than  a  book;  a  literature  of  vast  and  indefinite  extent. 
And  there  is  no  recognized  canon  of  authenticity  in  the 
case  of  the  Veda.  The  comporition  of  the  works  included 
in  the  Veda  extended  over  many  centuries ;  and  in  the  later 
periods  the  question  what  is  Vedic  and  what  is  not  be- 
comes increasingly  difficult.  Fortunately,  it  is  also 
increasingly  unimportant. 

There  are  certain  recognized  types  of  literature  into 
which  all  Vedic  works  are  divided.  In  order  to  be  Vedic, 
any  work  must  at  least  claim  to  belong  to  one  of  these 

114 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  VEDA 

types.  They  are:  i.  The  Samhitas  or  "  Collections >f  of* 
mantras  or  "  sacred  utterances."  These  are  the  oldest 
and  most  basic  parts  of  the  Veda.  There  are  primarily 
four  of  these  Samhitas;  but  each  of  the  four  exists,  or 
else  originally  did  exist,  in  several  more  or  less  different 
recensions,  cultivated  in  different  priestly  schools.  The 
four  recognized  Samhitas,  or  types  of  Samhita,  are:  (a) 
the  Rig-veda,  consisting  mainly  of  hymns  of  praise  and 
prayer  intended  to  be  used  at  the  sacrifices  to  the  various 
gods;  (b)  the  Atharva-veda,  consisting  mostly  of  incan- 
tations designed  to  be  used  in  connection  with  magic  rites 
for  the  attainment  of  all  manner  of  natural  human  de- 
sires, both  innocent  and  sinister;  (c)  the  Yajur-veda, 
consisting  of  sacrificial  formulae  and  litanies,  exclusively 
intended  for  use  at  certain  important  sacrificial  cere- 
monies; (d)  the  Sama-veda,  consisting  of  chants,  and  also 
purely  ritual  in  application.  2.  The  second  grand  divi- 
sion of  the  Vedic  literature  consists  of  what  are  called 
the  Brahmanas.  They  are  theological  text-books,  like 
the  Jewish  Talmud,  explaining  from  the  priestly  stand- 
point the  texts  found  in  the  Samhitas,  and  the  rites  with 
which  they  were  connected.  3.  The  third  division  con- 
sists of  the  Aranyakas  or  "  forest-books,"  and  the  Upani- 
shads  or  "  intimate,  secret  expositions."  Both  of  these 
were  originally  appendices  to  the  Brahmanas.  But  the 
Upanishads  soon  acquired  an  independent  existence  and 
value,  owing  to  the  distinctive  character  and  importance 
of  their  contents.  They  contain  the  first  extensive  specu- 
lations in  philosophy  known  in  India.  As  such  they  are 
at  the  same  time  the  culmination  of  the  higher  thought 
of  the  Vedic  period,  and  the  foundation  on  which  all 
the  philosophic  speculation  of  later  India  ultimately  rests. 
Chronologically  there  are  vast  differences  in  different 
parts  of  the  Veda.  We  do  not  know  how  old  the  oldest 
parts  of  the  Rig-veda  are;  we  may  guess,  perhaps,  that 
they  go  back  to  about  2000  B.C.  Vedic  composition 

"5 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

stretches  from  about  that  time  down  almost  or  quite  to 
the  Christian  era,  in  which  the  later  Upanishads  are 
placed. 

There  is  room  in  this  long  period  of  time  for  extensive 
variations  and  developments  in  religion.  And,  in  fact,  the 
religion  of  the  early  Vedic  works  differs  enormously  from 
that  of  the  later  ones.  But  that  is  not  all.  Radically 
different  types  of  religion  appear  to  have  existed  side  by 
side  in  some  periods ;  and  at  times  we  find  signs  of  curious 
and  puzzling  blends  between  them.  We  ought  really  to 
speak  of  the  "  religions  " — instead  of  "  religion  " — of 
the  Veda. 

At  the  very  outset  the  student  of  Indian  religions  is 
struck  by  a  peculiar  feature  which  may  be  said  to  remain 
through  all  time,  in  general,  characteristic  of  them  all. 
Namely :  on  the  intellectual  side  they  are  free,  speculative, 
active,  receptive,  and  not  dogmatically  crystallized.  Hence 
on  the  one  hand  the  bewilderingly  Protean  forms  which 
most  Indian  religions  assume,  seeming  to  defy  any  con- 
sistent and  logical  arrangement  of  their  intellectual  be- 
liefs ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  the  striking  tolerance  which 
they  show  to  new  ideas  and  even  to  rival  contemporary 
sects.  But  if  Hindu  religions  are  free  in  thought,  they 
are  anything  but  free  in  action.  To  be  religiously  cor- 
rect is  to  live  correctly;  it  matters  little  what  you  think. 
Proper  observances  and  performances  seem  to  be  the 
essence  of  religion  in  India,  rather  than  an  orthodox 
system  of  belief.  The  Hindus  are  intellectually  tolerant, 
but  they  are  intolerant  and  narrow  in  their  insistence 
on  formal  rites  and  actions. 

There  is  a  well-known  and  prominent  concept  of 
Vedic  ethics,  about  which  I  wish  space  permitted  me  to 
speak  at  length,  but  which  I  must  at  least  mention  because 
it  so  strikingly  illustrates  this  point.  Right  living,  ac- 
cording to  the  Rig-veda,  is  living  in  accordance  with  the 
rita.  The  rita  means  the  Way  of  the  Universe ;  it  is  essen- 

116 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  VEDA 

tially  the  Tao  of  the  Chinese.  All  the  established  events 
of  the  visible  world  are  parts  of  the  rita,  or  take  place  in 
accordance  with  it.  And  the  whole  duty  of  man  is  to 
govern  his  life  after  the  pattern  of  this  cosmic  law.  It 
is  a  really  noble  concept,  and  might  have  been  made  the 
basis  for  a  truly  inspiring  moral  system.  But  in  the 
hands  of  the  Vedic  poets  the  rita  becomes  little  more  than 
an  apotheosis  of  the  system  of  sacrifice  around  which 
Rigvedic  religion  centers.  To  live  in  accordance  with  the 
rita  one  must  perform  all  the  ceremonies  of  the  cult, 
and  little  more.  That  is  practically  the  whole  duty  of 
man. 

This  cult,  which  is  the  be-all  and  end-all  of  the  hymns 
which  devote  themselves  to  it,  presents  itself  to  us  in  the 
Vedic  hymns  in  anything  but  a  primitive  form.  It  ap- 
pears there  as  the  last  precipitate  of  centuries  of  compli- 
cated development. 

The  primitive,  prehistoric  ancestors  of  the  Vedic 
Aryans  (that  is  the  name  by  which  the  authors  of  the 
hymns  call  themselves)  had  a  religion  which  may  be  called 
a  naturalistic  polytheism,  or  animism.  Man  saw  in 
all  nature  constant  manifestations  of  volitional  acts,  which 
he  interpreted  in  terms  of  his  own  acts.  He  inferred 
that  whatever  went  on  in  the  world  was  due  to  the  con- 
scious activity  of  spirits — sentient  beings  more  or  less 
like  his  fellow-men.  All  animate  and  inanimate  objects, 
all  natural  processes,  and  even  abstractions  of  qualities 
or  activities  as  such,  were  naively  conceived  as  being,  or 
as  inhabited  by,  spirits — that  is,  sentient  beings  capable 
of  volitional  acts. 

The  prehistoric  Aryan  dealt  with  these  powers,  which 
he  supposed  existed  in  the  world  about  him,  in  the  two 
ways  which  are  familiar  in  primitive  religions  the  world 
over,  namely,  by  devotional  propitiation,  and  by  compul- 
sory magic.  My  position  in  this  course  makes  it  un- 
necessary for  me  to  take  time  to  dwell  on  these  two 

117 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

methods,  or  to  analyze  their  relationship  to  each  other; 
you  already  know  what  they  mean;  and  in  Aryan  re- 
ligion they  bear  the  aspect  of  ultimate  and  irreducible 
data  (which  is  not  saying  that  one  may  not  in  fact  have 
developed  out  of  the  other) .  It  appears  that  the  primitive 
Aryan  undertook  to  control  by  magic,  and  so  to  make 
subject  to  his  will,  those  spiritual  agencies  which  he 
thought  he  could  so  control;  while  the  more  powerful 
spirits — gods,  if  you  like — he  sought  to  propitiate  by  sac- 
rifices, thus  securing  their  assistance  by  winning  their  good 
will,  since  he  felt  he  had  not  the  power  to  compel  them. 
Since  very  early  prehistoric  times  these  sacrificial  rites 
of  propitiation  were  accompanied  by  spoken  words.  Their 
purpose,  as  we  still  see  clearly  from  the  hymns  of  the 
Rig-veda,  was  to  call  the  attention  of  the  gods  to  the 
offering,  and  invite  them  to  enjoy  it.  At  probably  an 
equally  early  time,  the  magic  rites  were  also  provided 
with  spoken  charms  or  incantations,  although  here  the 
motive  cannot  have  been  the  same,  since  in  many  of  them, 
at  least,  no  sacrifice  was  offered  and  no  deity  was  in- 
voked to  aid.  But  in  any  case  the  original  meaning  of 
the  words  spoken,  even  at  the  sacrifice — their  function 
as  an  invitation  to  the  gods — soon  became  obscured,  or 
was  relegated  to  the  background.  Before  historic  times, 
the  invocation  or  "  hymn,"  as  we  may  now  call  it,  had 
come  through  ancient  custom  to  be  regarded  as  an  in- 
tegral and  very  necessary  part  of  the  religious  perform- 
ance; an  end  in  itself,  just  as  much  as  the  actual  sacrifice 
which  it  accompanied.  One  is  no  more  and  no  less 
important  than  the  other.1 

*For  example,  the  hymns  of  the  Rig-veda  show  clearly  that 
they  themselves  go  back  to  a  type  of  invocations  to  the  gods. 
Nevertheless,  the  consciousness  of  this  fact  was  so  faint  in  the 
authors'  minds  that  they  felt  it  necessary  to  create  a  special  class  of 
hymns  of  invocation  (called  '  aprl  hymns'),  whose  sole  and  express 
purpose  is  to  invite  the  gods  to  the  service ;  that  is,  to  the  sacrifice 
and  the  accompanying  hymns  of  praise  and  prayer,  now  felt  as  a 
kind  of  offerings  in  themselves. 

1x8 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  VEDA 

Originally  it  appears  that  any  person  was  qualified  to 
engage  in  sacrifices  and  magic  performances,  and  to  recite 
the  accompanying  hymns  or  charms.  To  a  certain  extent, 
indeed,  this  was  true  even  in  the  historic  Vedic  period. 
Down  to  its  very  end  there  were  some  simple  domestic 
rites  of  sacrifice  which  every  Aryan  might,  or  even  had 
to,  perform.  And  certainly  many  magic  rites  could  be 
performed  by  anyone.  But  all  such  matters  quickly  be- 
come traditional,  and  it  is  then  required  that  they  be 
performed  precisely  in  accord  with  inherited  usage;  else 
they  may  fail  of  the  desired  result.  Accordingly,  ordinary 
people  continued  to  perform  for  themselves  only  such 
rites  as  could  conveniently  be  performed  by  anyone,  by 
reason  of  their  simplicity  or  regularity.  And  for  the  per- 
formance of  the  more  occasional  or  elaborate  ceremonies, 
long  before  the  times  of  the  earliest  Vedic  literature  people 
began  more  and  more  to  call  to  their  aid  religious  special- 
ists, priests  or  medicine-men,  who,  of  course,  came  into 
existence  as  a  class  in  response  to  this  natural  demand. 
These  priests  and  magic-masters  made  it  their  business 
to  advise  and  assist  those  who  would  engage  in  any  re- 
ligious performance.  And  in  the  case  of  the  more  com- 
plicated ones,  the  participation  of  these  persons  became 
so  usual  that  in  the  times  of  the  Rig-veda  it  was  gradually 
coming — if  it  had  not  already  come — to  be  felt  as  a  neces- 
sity to  the  proper  observance  of  the  rites.  Thus,  finally, 
the  priests  became  the  definite  custodians  of  the  impor- 
tant ceremonies  of  the  Aryan  cult. 

They  strengthened  their  hold  on  them,  whether  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  by  means  of  the  ever-increasing 
elaboration  with  which  they,  or  a  certain  group  of  them, 
surrounded  the  rites  they  employed.  There  were,  of 
course,  priests  and  priests;  just  as  there  were  rites  and 
rites.  The  priests  of  the  fire-cult,  or  of  a  certain  fire- 
cult,  seem  to  have  become  the  recognized  aristocracy  of 
the  priesthood,  even  in  prehistoric  times.  For  it  had  early 

119 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

become  fashionable  to  pour  the  articles  of  food  and  drink, 
which  were  the  most  usual  sacrificial  offerings,  into  fire.2 
The  fire  that  consumed  the  offerings  became  thereby  spe- 
cially sacred;  and  the  ritual  of  the  fire  offering  began  to 
be  distinguished,  by  those  who  practised  it,  as  a  particu- 
larly holy  and  pious  performance.  It  naturally  followed 
that  the  fire-ritual  soon  became  especially  elaborate,  and 
its  priests  especially  respected. 

There  was  another  very  ancient  special  cult,  distin- 
guished not  by  the  method  of  presenting  the  offering  but 
by  the  offering  itself :  the  cult  of  the  sacred  drink  Soma. 
The  common  ancestors  of  the  Vedic  Hindus  and  the 
Persians  had  offered  this  beverage,  and  had  even  deified 
the  drink  itself ;  it  appears  in  the  Avesta,  the  sacred  book 
of  the  Zoroastrian  Persians,  under  the  name  of  Haoma. 
This  is  the  same  word  as  the  Vedic  Soma,  which  likewise 
is  both  beverage  and  god.  It  was  a  highly  prized  intoxi- 
cating liquor  obtained  by  a  pressing  process  from  the 
shoots  of  a  plant  which  cannot  now  be  identified.  Among 
Iranians  and  Hindus  alike  it  was  regarded  as  the  most 
acceptable  means  of  gratifying  the  gods.  One  entire  book 
of  the  Rig-veda  (the  ninth)  is  devoted  to  hymns  to  this 
divine  drink.  The  poets  never  weary  of  singing  its 
praises. 

Now  it  is  an  interesting  fact,  and  one  of  the  highest 
importance  in  the  development  of  Vedic  religion,  that  the 
fire-priests,  or  a  group  of  them,  succeeded  at  an  early  time 
in  capturing  or  assimilating  this  soma-cult,  and  making  it 
the  centre  of  their  most  ambitious  and  pretentious  cere- 
monies. In  fact,  the  soma-cult  became  a  kind  of  hall- 
mark of  distinction  for  a  certain  class  of  fire-ceremonies, 
which  distinguished  them  from  their  less  aristocratic  rela- 
tives. It  was  especially  in  connection  with  them  that  one 

2  Other  methods  of  disposing  of  the  offerings  were  known,  and 
were  practised  to  some  extent  even  in  historic  times ;  but  they  were 
of  comparatively  slight  importance. 

120 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  VEDA 

group  of  fire-priests  succeeded  in  appropriating  to  them- 
selves a  predominant  position  in  the  religious  life  of  the 
Vedic  Aryans. 

Among  these  fire-priests  who  cultivated  the  soma-cult 
there  was  elaborated  a  ceremonial  which  required  the  use 
not  of  one,  but  of  three  sacred  fires  at  every  sacrificial 
performance,  and  which  was  more  complicated  in  other 
ways  also.  Not  only  more  complicated,  but  more  ex- 
pensive ;  and  thereby  hangs  a  tale.  This  three-fire  ritual, 
centering  about  the  soma-sacrifice,  acquired  by  the  times 
of  the  Rig-veda  such  a  degree  of  elaborateness  and  conse- 
quent expensiveness  that  the  ordinary  poor  man  could  not 
in  the  nature  of  things  engage  in  it.  Only  princes  and 
wealthy  men  could  afford  it.  It  was,  therefore,  of  neces- 
sity not  required  for  the  performance  of  the  simpler  daily 
rites  which  every  pious  Aryan  had  to  perform ;  nor  for 
such  occasional  rites  as  birth,  marriage,  and  funeral  cere- 
monies, which,  though  not  of  periodic  occurrence,  neces- 
sarily formed  part  of  the  religious  duty  of  all  the  people. 

The  Rig-veda  is,  in  general,  a  hymn-book  for  use  at 
these  three-fire  ceremonies.  That  is,  its  hymns  were, 
in  the  main,  composed  for  the  express  purpose  of  being 
chanted  at  these  elaborate  rites,  soma-sacrifices  and  others, 
which  had  to  be  performed  with  the  three  sacred  fires. 
These  hymns  were  composed  by  the  fire-soma-priests 
themselves,  for  their  own  use.  They  are  therefore  a 
hieratic  literature  in  a  very  extreme  sense.  Not  only 
do  they  reflect  constantly  the  class  interests  and  the  class 
viewpoint  of  their  priestly  authors,  but  they  devote  them- 
selves exclusively  to  this  ultra-hieratic  phase  of  religion, 
the  religion  centering  about  the  three-fire  cult.  Not  only 
are  secular  matters  not  primarily  considered  at  all,  but 
even  those  more  popular  religious  performances  are 
ignored,  which  did  not  require  this  elaborate  ritual,  and 
which  formed  the  staple  religion  of  the  great  mass  of  the 

121 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

Aryan  people.3  In  short,  let  me  make  this  point  very 
emphatic:  the  religion  portrayed  by  the  great  mass  of 
the  hymns  of  the  Rig-veda  is  very  far  from  being  the  re- 
ligion of  the  Vedic  Aryans.  It  is  not  even  the  religion  of 
any  considerable  section  of  them.  Nay,  it  is  probably  not 
the  whole  religion  of  any  of  them.  The  group  of  rites 
with  which  it  is  (one  may  practically  say)  exclusively 
concerned  was  itself  a  sort  of  work  of  supererogation— 
not  absolutely  required  of  anyone,  and  never  performed 
at  all  except  by  the  aristocracy  of  the  people. 

The  theory  of  this  hieratic  cult  was  a  very  simple 
one  of  commercial  bargaining  between  gods  and  men.  It 
is  frequently  stated  in  pretty  bald  terms  in  the  texts  them- 
selves. "  Give  to  me ;  I  give  to  thee."  "  Enjoy  the  soma, 
satisfy  thyself  with  it;  then  turn  thy  mind  to  the  giving 
of  riches,"  says  a  Rigvedic  poet.  The  gods  want  sacri- 
fices, of  food  and  drink,  accompanied  by  hymns,  which 
are  by  this  time  an  integral  part  of  the  sacrifice,  and  in 
which  the  gods  take  an  aesthetic  pleasure.  These  things 
it  is  in  the  power  of  men  to  provide.  Men,  on  the  other 
hand,  want  wealth,  long  life,  and  the  discomfiture  of  their 
enemies.  Such  boons  are  in  the  gift  of  the  mighty  gods 
to  whom  the  three-fire  soma-cult  devotes  itself.  The 
whole  transaction  is  then  a  commercial  one.  The  priests 
are  the  middle-men.  And  their  commission  is  the  sacri- 
ficial fee  (dakshina),  which  was  a  very  necessary  part  of 
every  sacrifice;  without  it  no  sacrifice  is  complete.  The 
very  human  wants  of  the  priests  are,  in  fact,  quite  promi- 
nent in  most  of  the  hymns;  we  are  seldom  allowed  to 
forget  for  long  that  the  poet-priests  are  after  all  men, 
and  that  they  make  their  living  by  offering  these  sacrifices 
and  chanting  these  hymns. 

As  might  be  expected,  and  as  I  have  already  hinted, 

"  Nearly  all  of  the  few  Rigvedic  hymns  of  which  this  is  not  true 
are  later  additions  to  the  collection  as  it  stands;  though  this  does 
not  necessarily  mean  that  the  hymns  themselves  are  late. 

122 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  VEDA 

the  gods  to  whom  this  aristocratic  and  hieratic  cult  ad- 
dresses its  sacrifices  and  hymns  are  a  somewhat  select 
company.  Although  they  do  not  form  any  sharply  defined 
class,  it  may  be  said  of  them  in  general  that  they  are  all 
great  and  powerful  gods ;  and  most  of  them  are  originally 
personifications  of  major  powers  of  nature.  The  powers 
of  the  sun,  the  moon,  the  sky,  the  rain,  and  so  on,  are 
the  naturalistic  elements  which  would  most  easily  im- 
press the  consciousness  of  primitive  man.  They  seem 
most  obviously  to  have  the  capacity  of  working  man's 
weal  or  woe.  Minor  spirits  are  nearly  or  quite  ignored 
in  this  hieratic  cult  of  the  Rig-veda ;  they  find  a  place  in 
the  lower  religion  of  the  people. 

But,  very  significantly  as  it  seems  to  me,  the  most 
transparent  personifications  among  the  hieratic  deities  are 
not  so  much  naturalistic  as  ritualistic  entities.  The  very 
pantheon  is  made  to  center  more  and  more  about  the  sacri- 
fice, preparing  the  way  for  the  later  stage  In  which  the 
sacrifice  absorbs  the  whole  content  of  religion.  We  have 
already  alluded  to  the  fact  that  the  soma-drink,  the  most 
aristocratic  offering,  becomes  the  god  Soma,  one  of  the 
most  prominent  of  the  Rigvedic  gods.4  Another  god  of 
prime  importance  is  Agni,  who  is,  most  transparently, 
Fire ;  the  word  agni  is  the  common  noun  for  "  fire."  A 
naturalistic  concept,  of  course;  and,  indeed,  there  is  no 
Vedic  god  of  whom  it  is  more  true  that  the  poets  think 
of  him  all  the  time  as  both  element  and  personal  god. 
They  even  at  times  recognize  him  in  the  sun  and  the 
lightning,  in  the  forest  fire,  and  wherever  else  fiery  ele- 
ments are  found.  Nevertheless,  he  is  to  them  first  and 

4  Later  Soma  is  identified  with  the  moon ;  but  this  seems  to  me, 
as  to  most  scholars,  a  secondary  development.  Professor  Hille- 
brandt,  however,  believes  that  the  identification  goes  back  to  the 
earliest  times.  The  question  is  not  important  for  my  present  point ; 
there  is  no  doubt  that,  whatever  Soma  was  originally,  most  of  the 
Rigvedic  poets  think  of  him  primarily  as  the  deified  sacrificial  drink ; 
so  that  he  is  a  primarily  ritualistic  god  to  them. 

123 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

foremost  the  sacred  fire  of  sacrifice;  the  Messenger  be- 
tween men  and  gods,  who  carries  the  offerings  to  heaven, 
or  who  by  his  beacon-flame  attracts  the  gods  to  them. 
Countless  are  the  epithets  and  descriptions  of  Agni  which 
refer  clearly  to  his  ritualistic  character.  They  overwhelm 
and  almost  obliterate  references  to  him  in  his  mere  natu- 
ralistic guise.  It  is  to  this  deified  Fire  of  Sacrifice,  not 
to  fire  in  general,  that  one-fifth  of  all  the  'hymns  of  the 
Rig-veda  are  addressed.  And  the  same  is  true  of  another 
of  the  transparent  personifications  in  the  Vedic  pantheon, 
the  goddess  Dawn,  Ushas.  Again  the  word  means  simply 
Dawn;  but  again  the  concept  is  a  thoroughly  ritualistic 
one,  as  the  hymns  show.  Dawn  is  the  goddess  who 
gives  the  signal  for  the  morning  sacrifice  to  start;  who 
wakes  the  pious  and  generous  man  that  pays  the  priest 
for  the  sacrifice  (she  is  besought  to  let  the  stingy  man 
sleep  on!) ;  who  is  the  mother  of  Agni,  because  the  Fire 
of  sacrifice  is  kindled  at  dawn.5 

There  are,  to  be  sure,  other  gods,  and  some  of  equal 
importance  with  these,  who  cannot  be  said  to  be  personi- 
fications of  powers  inherently  related  to  the  ritual.  I 
think,  however,  that  it  is  no  accident  that  we  find  it  diffi- 
cult to  say  just  what  these  other  gods  do  personify.  They 
are  for  the  most  part  gods  whose  original  nature  was 
already  forgotten,  probably,  even  in  the  times  of  the 
Rigvedic  poets  themselves.  Some  of  them  are  allowed 
a  somewhat  questionable  position  in  the  hieratic  cult  in 
spite  of  their  non-ritualistic  character.  For  one  reason 
or  another  their  position  in  the  general  Aryan  pantheon 
made  it  impossible  for  the  hieratic  cult  to  ignore  them; 
but  it  treats  them  in  a  rather  step-motherly  fashion. 
There  is,  for  instance,  the  majestic  Varuna — perhaps  the 
leading  god  of  the  prehistoric  Indo-Iranians,  as  he  at 

5  The  ritualistic  character  of  this  interesting  goddess  was  first 
clearly  shown  by  Professor  Bloomfield,  in  his  book,  The  Religion  of 
the  Veda,  pages  66  ff. 

124 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  VEDA 

least  became  the  leading  god  of  the  historic  Persians 
(under  the  name  of  Ahura  Mazda).  It  is  declared  in 
the  Veda,  too,  that  he  is  the  greatest  of  gods,  the  guardian 
of  the  world-order,  the  righteous  king  and  judge  of  the 
universe,  the  punisher  of  all  evil.  In  short,  he  is  described 
as  a  veritable  Hindu  Yahweh.  Yet  he  has  very  few 
hymns  addressed  to  him.  His  share  in  the  hieratic  cult 
was  insignificant  compared  to  the  grandeur  attributed  to 
him.  And  his  prestige  waned  as  time  went  on.  Why? 
Apparently  because  he  had  no  special  connection  with  the 
three-fire  ritual. 

Most  of  the  old  naturalistic  gods  are  treated  thus,  or 
worse,  in  the  Rigvedic  cult.  But  there  is  one  god  who 
has  managed  to  make  himself  the  favorite  of  the  whole 
pantheon  in  the  Rig-veda,  at  least  judging  by  the  number 
of  his  hymns,  and  who  yet  was  not  originally  ritualistic 
at  all,  as  it  seems.  This  is  Indra,6  to  whom  about  a  fourth 
of  all  the  Rigvedic  hymns  are  addressed.  He  is  as  differ- 
ent from  the  other  gods  as  can  well  be  imagined.  He  is  a 
god  of  warriors,  not  of  priests.  In  fact,  he  is  a  perfect 
impersonation  of  all  that  we  should  imagine  the  rude, 
half-barbarous  Aryan  chieftains  of  the  time  to  have  been, 
magnified  to  superhuman  size.  He  is  an  ideal  patron  saint 
for  the  men  of  war  of  that  time.  He  is  boisterous, 
ferocious,  and  boastful.  He  is  an  enormous  eater  and 
especially  drinker;  he  is  the  chief  drinker  of  the  soma, 
the  sacred  tipple,  of  which  he  swallows  whole  lakes.  Most 
of  all,  his  strength  and  warlike  prowess  are  inconceivably 
great;  the  poets  lose  themselves  completely  in  trying  to 
describe  them.  He  gets  thoroughly  drunk  on  soma,  and 

*  His  origin  is  obscure ;  fjut  he  almost  certainly  represented  some 
power  of  nature.  The  traditional  interpretation  makes  him  a  god  of 
the  thunder-storm.  Of  late  Hillebrandt's  theory  that  he  was  a 
sun-god  has  been  making  some  headway  against  the  older  one.  In 
any  case  he  is  the  most  thoroughly  anthropomorphized  of  all  the 
Vedic  gods,  and  therefore  the  least  transparent.  We  can  hardly 
imagine  that  the  poets  thought  of  him  in  terms  of  any  power  of 
nature,  as  a  rule. 

125 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

then  goes  out  and  slaughters  the  demons  by  the  hundreds. 
Of  course  he  also  helps  his  worshipers  in  battle  against 
their  enemies,  the  heathen  Dasas,  the  dark-skinned  abo- 
rigines whom  the  Aryans  subdued.  In  short,  Indra  is  the 
national  war-god  of  the  conquering  Aryans,  especially 
of  their  righting  chieftains.  Now  we  must  remember  that 
it  was  just  these  chieftains  and  leaders  of  the  people  who 
kept  the  hieratic  cult  in  operation.  Its  elaborate  and 
expensive  rites  depended  on  their  munificence  for  sup- 
port; and  the  priests'  living  came  from  the  rites.  Need 
it  surprise  us,  then,  that  Indra  was  made  the  very  head 
and  front  of  the  whole  cult,  the  chief  beneficiary  of  the 
soma-sacrifice,  its  greatest  performance  ? 

Thus,  as  finally  constituted,  the  soma-sacrifice  comes 
to  mean  almost  the  same  thing  as  a  sacrifice  to  Indra. 
'Indra,  though  originally  not  peculiar  to  the  three-fire 
ritual,  becomes  the  very  most  typical  exponent  of  it,  suc- 
cessfully rivaling  Agni,  the  sacred  Fire  in  person.  And  in 
the  last  resort  the  religion  of  the  great  mass  of  the  hymns 
of  the  Rig-veda  appears  not  as  a  naturalistic  but  as  a 
ritualistic  polytheism.  The  importance  of  a  god  depends 
not  on  his  natural  qualities  and  powers  but  first  and  fore- 
most on  his  position  in  the  hieratic  ritual,  around  which 
everything  centers. 

The  logical  conclusion — or,  as  one  is  tempted  to  call 
it,  the  reductio  ad  absurd-urn — of  this  tendency  is  found 
not  in  the  Vedic  hymns,  but  in  the  pure  ritualism  of  the 
Brahmanas,  the  later  liturgic  texts.  Even  in  the  hymns, 
however,  the  way  is  marked  out.  The  original  idea  of  the 
sacrifice  as  an  appeal  to  the  good  will  of  the  gods  tends 
to  become  obliterated.  The  gods  begin  to  be  thought  of 
as  dependent  on  the  sacrifice  for  their  powers,  nay  even 
for  their  very  existence.  The  sacrifice  no  longer  per- 
suades, but  compels  them.  The  correct  sacrificer  owns 
the  gods ;  they  can  not  choose  but  grant  his  wish.  Finally, 
after  the  gods  have  been  reduced  to  this  position  of  help- 

126 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  VEDA 

less  agents  of  the  sacrifice,  it  becomes  apparent  that  they 
are  no  longer  needed  at  all.  If  the  sacrifice  can  abso- 
lutely control  the  gods,  why  can  it  not  just  as  well  work 
the  desired  result  without  them?  Accordingly,  in  many 
parts  of  the  Brahmanas  the  sacrifice  (to  whom?  is  a 
question  that  cannot  be  rationally  answered)  is  itself 
a  direct  cosmic  force  of  the  first  magnitude.  If  religion 
started  with  magic,  it  has  now  completed  the  circle  and 
returned  to  magic  again.  For  what  is  it  but  pure  magic, 
if  by  correct  performance  of  a  ritual  act  a  man  can  not 
only  obtain  any  desired  boon,  but  directly  control  the 
operations  o-f  all  cosmic  forces?  This  is  the  twilight  of 
Vedic  ritualism;  it  is  preparing  to  die  of  its  own  inner 
dry-rot.  Every  vestige  of  devotion  has  left  it.  A  system 
of  sacrifices  with  none  to  sacrifice  to  is  too  absurd  to  live. 
Meanwhile,  let  us  not  forget  that  this  hieratic  ritual- 
istic religion  of  the  three-fire  ceremonies,  centering  in  the 
soma-cult,  probably  played  a  very  small  role  in  the  re- 
ligious life  of  the  people  as  a  whole.  It  was,  as  we  saw,  a 
supererogatory  system,  which  in  the  nature  of  things  could 
concern  only  the  upper  classes  of  society.  All  the  time 
there  existed  a  whole  complex  of  simpler  rites,  more  or 
less  engaged  in  by  the  whole  people,  even  by  the  devotees 
of  the  three-fire  cult,  which  latter  ignored  but  did  not  by 
any  means  oppose  them.  There  was  no  rigid  distinction 
between  the  two  systems.  In  the  popular  cult  as  well 
there  were  many  fire  sacrifices;  only  these  were  simple 
and  required  but  one  sacred  fire  instead  of  three.7  But 
the  popular  religion  included  a  vast  deal  that  was  not 
included  in  the  hieratic  three-fire  cult.  It  revered  many 
gods,  godlings,  and  spirits  whom  the  other  ignored.  It 
was  still  primitively  animistic;  every  object,  animate  or 
inanimate,  was  or  contained  a  potential  deity.  In  it,  too, 

7  Some  ceremonies  belonged  to  both  cults,  and  could  be  per- 
formed with  either  one  or  three  fires,  and  with  a  simpler  or  more 
elaborate  ritual,  according  to  the  inclinations  and  the  social  and 
financial  standing  of  the  sacrificer. 

127 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

we  find  magical  practices,  both  good  and  bad,  "  white  " 
and  "  black,"  in  full  swing.  Moreover,  it  contained  cere- 
monies connected  with  birth,  marriage,  and  death,  and 
with  other  standard  and  regular  occurrences  in  the  life 
of  every  man,  which  for  that  very  reason  found  no  place 
in  the  aristocratic  and  hieratic  three-fire  cult.  The  great 
repository  of  materials  for  this  popular  religion  is  the 
Atharva-veda,  which  was  at  the  beginning  not  hieratic  but 
popular.  From  it  we  can  get  an  astonishingly  complete 
and  very  interesting  account  of  the  real  fundamental 
religious  beliefs  and  practices  of  the  Vedic  Aryans,  much 
better  than  from  the  hieratic  Rig-veda ; 8  although  for 
historic  reasons  the  "  higher  "  hieratic  religion  generally 
occupies  the  attention  of  students  to  a  much  greater  extent, 
since  mainly  out  of  it  grew  the  later  higher  systems  of 
religion  and  philosophy.9 

But  I  must  resist  the  temptation  to  say  more  about  the 
homely  but  perennially  interesting  popular  religion  of 
the  Atharva-veda. 

Out  of  the  ritualistic  polytheism  of  the  Rig-veda  there 

8  In  later  times  the  hieratic  cult  tried  to  save  itself  from  dying 
of  inanition  by  assimilating  such  of  the  popular  rites  as  were  not 
too  glaringly  out  of  sympathy  with  it.     The  Rig-veda  itself,  in  its 
present  form,  contains  marriage  and  funeral  hymns,  and  even  magic 
charms.    But  their  position — mostly  in  the  tenth  book,  a  late  addition 
to  the  collection — shows  that  they  did  not  originally  belong  to  it. 
Later  many  other  popular  rites   were   adopted  and  made  part  of 
the  hieratic  system,   although   they   were  kept  carefully   separated 
from  the  original  parts  of  the  system ;  they  were  treated  in  special 
ritual  books,  the  Grihya  Sutras.     The  fact  that  it  is  in  these,  and 
not  in  the  strictly  hieratic  Crauta  Sutras,  that  marriage  and  funeral 
ceremonies  are  treated,  confirms  us  in  regarding  the  marriage  and 
funeral  hymns  of  the  Rig-veda  as  intrusions  in  the  hieratic  collection. 
This  subject  requires   for  adequate  treatment  more  space  than   I 
have  at  my  disposal. 

9  Sectarian  Hinduism,  however,  with  its  cults  of  Vishnu  and  Civa, 
has  its  chief  source  rather  in  popular  beliefs  and  practices.    Traces 
of  the  beginnings  of  the  Qiva  cult  at  least  are  found  in  the  Atharva- 
veda.    Vishnu  is  indeed  a  Rigvedic  deity  (as  for  that  matter  £iva  is, 
too,  under  the  name  of  Rudra)  ;  but  he  is  a  very  minor  one.    His 
later  apotheosis  into  the  Supreme  God  of  his  sectarians  can  only 
partly  be  traced  in  later  Vedic  texts.    The  subject  is  very  intricate 
and  obscure.  We  shall  return  to  it  briefly  in  Chapter  VII. 

128 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  VEDA 

developed,  as  we  saw,  a  pure  ritualism  in  the  Brahmanas, 
which  make  the  sacrifice  itself  the  whole  thing,  practically 
to  the  exclusion  of  the  gods  to  whom  the  sacrifice  after 
all  must  have  been  made.  By  the  side  of  this  logical 
monstrosity  there  was  developing  out  of  the  same  soil  a 
growth  of  much  more  promise.  In  quite  a  considerable 
minority  of  the  hymns  of  the  Rig-veda  itself,  we  find  signs 
of  a  new  view  of  the  gods,  to  which  we  may  give  the 
name  of  Ritualistic  Henotheism.  By  henotheism  is  meant 
a  religious  point  of  view  in  which  the  old  plurality  of  gods 
still  exists,  but  is  mitigated,  so  to  speak.  It  is  as  if  the 
religious  consciousness,  when  dealing  for  the  moment 
with  any  particular  god,  felt  it  as  an  insult  to  his  dignity 
to  admit  the  competition  of  other  deities.  And  so,  either 
the  particular  god  of  the  moment  is  identified  with  all  the 
other  gods,  or  rather,  they  are  identified  with  him,  ad 
major  em  gloriam;™  or  else  he  is  given  attributes  which 
in  strict  logic  could  not  be  given  to  any  but  a  sole  mono- 
theistic deity.  Thus  at  different  moments  Indra  or  Varuna 
or  Agni  is  said  to  be  the  sole  lord  of  the  universe  and  of 
all  beings,  the  creator,  preserver,  and  animator  of  the 
world,  the  ruler  of  gods  and  men,  and  so  on.11  We  are, 
however,  still  dealing  with  a  ritualistic  religion;  Vedic 
henotheism  is  rooted  in  the  ritual.  It  clearly  originated 
in  the  ritual  treatment  of  various  gods.  As  each  god 
came  upon  the  stage  in  the  procession  of  rites,  he  was 
accorded  impartially  this  increasingly  extravagant  praise, 
until  finally  everything  that  could  be  said  of  all  the  gods 
collectively  is  said  of  each  of  them  in  turn,  individually. 
Now,  however,  the  henotheistic  position  was  too  glar- 
ingly illogical  to  prevail  for  long.  Such  things  as  the 
creation  of  the  world  and  the  overlordship  of  all  crea- 

*As  in  R.  V.  5.3,  where  Agni  is  successively  identified  with  all 
the  chief  gods  of  the  pantheon,  as  if  they  were  all  but  manifestations 
of  Agni.  In  other  hymns  other  gods  are  similarly  glorified. 

"One  of  the  best  examples  of  his  type  is  the  Indra  hymn 
R.  V.  2.12. 

9  129 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

-\ 

tures  could  in  reality  be  predicated  of  only  one  person- 
ality. But  which  one?  There  was  no  more  reason  for 
singling  out  one  of  the  old  ritualistic  gods  than  another. 
All  had  been  tarred  with  the  same  stick.  The  problem 
evidently  occupied  the  attention  of  the  most  advanced 
minds  of  the  age.  And  already  in  the  Rig-veda  there 
are  a  number  of  attempts  to  answer  it.  Two  groups  of 
ideas  may  be  distinguished  in  the  answers.  The  one  set 
of  ideas  is  developing  towards  a  tentative  Monotheism — 
a  belief  in  one  sole  or  at  least  supreme  God;  the  other 
towards  a  tentative  Monism — a  belief  in  one  primal  and 
supreme,  but  not  theistic,  principle.  Both  have  their  roots 
in  the  ritualistic  henotheism  to  which  we  have  been  re- 
ferring. And  the  two  together  furnish  the  keynotes  to  all 
the  higher  thought  of  the  later  Vedic  periods.  The  best 
of  the  Upanishads  only  elaborate  and  expand  and  com- 
bine and  discuss  ideas  which  are  found  in  essence  in  the 
quasi-monotheistic  and  monistic  hymns  of  the  Rig-veda. 

One  attempt  to  cut  the  Gordian  knot  of  Henotheism 
resulted  in  the  setting  up  of  some  new  and  purely  abstract, 
non-ritualistic,  but  still  personal,  figure,  and  predicating 
of  it,  and  of  it  alone,  all  the  things  which  had  been  heno- 
theistically  predicated  of  Indra,  Agni,  or  Varuna.  The 
new  deity  is  differently  named  in  different  compositions 
of  this  school ;  Prajapati,  the  Lord  of  Creatures,12  or  Vig- 
vakarman,  the  All-maker,13  and  so  on.  In  each  case  it  is 
he,  and  he  alone,  who  created  the  world  and  now  sup- 
ports and  rules  it,  and  the  like.  Yet  it  is  still  a  God  who 
does  this ;  a  kind  of  Yahweh  or  Allah  he  might  well  have 
become,  if  this  idea  had  taken  permanent  root  in  Hindu 
soil.  It  is  an  abortive  attempt  at  Monotheism,  not  yet 
Monism. 

More  significant  for  the  later  history  of  Indian 
thought  is  the  tentative  Monism  which  rivals  the  mono- 

"R.V.TO.I2I. 

MR.  V.  10.81  and  82. 

130 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  VEDA 

theistic  movement  even  in  the  Rig-veda,  though  only  in 
one  or  two  hymns,  notably  the  famous  10.129.  That 
remarkable  hymn  derives  the  universe  not  from  any  god 
or  gods,  monotheistic  or  otherwise.  It  knows  no  Yahweh 
or  Allah,  any  more  than  Indra  or  Varuna.  It  definitely 
brushes  aside  all  gods ;  in  fact,  it  says  in  terms  that  they 
are  all  of  late  and  secondary  origin,  and  know  nothing 
about  the  real  beginnings  of  things.  The  First  Principle 
of  this  hymn  is  Tad  Ekam — "  That  One  " ;  neuter  gender, 
lest  some  theologian  should  get  hold  of  it  and  insist  on 
falling  down  and  worshiping  it.  It  is  wholly  impersonal, 
and  non-theistic.  It  is  furthermore  uncharacterizable 
and  indescribable ;  without  qualities  or  attributes — without 
even  negative  characteristics;  it  was  "neither  existent 
nor  non-existent."  Yet  other  than  It  there  was  nothing 
at  all. 

This  monistic  concept  is  nothing  else  than  the  Brah- 
man of  the  Upanishads,  the  One  without  a  second,  of 
which,  as  the  later  texts  say,  nothing  can  be  said  except 
"  No,  no  " — it  is  not  this,  it  is  not  that.  To  apply  any 
description  to  it  is  to  limit  and  bound  that  which  is  limit- 
less and  boundless.  "  It  is  inconceivable,  for  it  cannot  be 
conceived;  unknowable,  for  it  cannot  be  known."  This 
philosophic  scepticism,  too,  is  clearly  heralded  in  the  last 
verses  of  the  Rigvedic  hymn  10.129;  there  is  no  one  that 
can  know  the  beginnings  of  things. 

It  should  be  made  clear  that  neither  the  quasi-monistic 
passages  of  the  Rig-veda,  nor  those  of  the  later  Vedic 
texts,  down  through  the  Upanishads,  which  contain  the 
final  consummation  of  Vedic  thought,  hold  fast  to  this 
or  any  other  definite  and  systematic  idea.  This  idea  and 
many  others  appear  and  disappear  moment  by  moment, 
and  constantly  jostle  each  other.  Sometimes  they  are 
more  or  less  synthetized,  but  more  often  they  are  left 
baldly  unreconciled  side  by  side. 

We  sometimes  hear  that  the  identification  of  the 

131 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

One  Being  with  the  dtman  or  human  soul  is  the  unifying 
thought  of  the  Upanishads.  It  is  true  that  the  Upanishads 
proclaim  clearly  enough  this  idea — which,  by  the  way,  like 
practically  every  other  doctrine  found  in  the  older  Upani- 
shads, goes  back  to  the  times  of  the  Vedic  hymns.14  Says 
the  Upanishadic  teacher  Uddalaka  Aruni  to  his  son : 15 
"  What  that  subtle  essence  is,  a  having-that-as-its-nature 
is  this  universe ;  that  is  the  Real,  that  is  the  Soul,  that  art 
Thou,  (Jvetaketu ! "  And  even  more  clearly  and  mag- 
nificently the  great  teacher  Yajfiavalkya  declares:16 
"  That  which  rests  in  all  things  and  is  distinct  from  all 
things,  which  all  things  know  not,  of  which  all  things 
are  the  body  (that  is,  the  material  representation  or 
form),  which  controls  all  things  within,  that  is  thy  Self 
(atman),  the  immortal  Inner  Controller  .  .  .  The  Un- 
seen Seer,  the  Unheard  Hearer,  the  Unthought  Thinker, 
the  Unknown  Knower.  There  is  no  other  Seer;  there  is 
no  other  Hearer;  there  is  no  other  Thinker;  there  is  no 
other  Knower.  This  is  thy  Self,  the  immortal  Inner 
Controller.  Whatever  is  other  than  this  is  evil." 

These  are  brave  words.  And  they  did  not  fail  to 
bring  forth  fruit.  For  they  later  became  the  kernel,  the 
unifying  thought,  of  the  Vedanta,  one  of  the  greatest 
philosophic  systems  o-f  later  India — perhaps  of  the  world. 
In  the  last  sentence  of  the  quotation,  hinting  at  the  evil- 
ness  of  all  that  is  not  the  One,  that  is  of  all  empiric  exist- 
ence, we  have  a  foretaste  of  the  Hindu  pessimistic  view 
of  life.  But  this,  as  well  as  the  doctrine  of  transmigra- 
tion, concerns  more  especially  po-st- Vedic  Hindu  thought ; 
I  shall  have  more  to  say  of  both  of  these  subjects  in  my 
next  lecture. 

What  I  want  now  to  emphasize  in  closing  is  the  fact 

14  Its  beginnings  are  discernible  in  the  Rig-veda  (cf.  R.  V.  10.90), 
and  still  more  clearly  in  the  Atharva-veda  (cf.  A.  V.  10.8.44). 
13  Chandogya  Upanishad  6.8  and  following. 
"  Brihad  Aranyaka  Upanishad  3.7. 

133 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  VEDA 

that,  in  my  opinion,  there  is  no  unifying  thought  in  the 
Upanishads.  There  is  no  philosophic  or  religious  system 
in  them,  although  there  are  steps  towards,  or  fragments 
of,  many  philosophic  and  religious  systems.  That  is, 
many  systems  could  be  constructed  or  developed  out  of  se- 
lected passages  in  them ;  and,  in  fact,  this  was  done  in  later 
India.  But  I  think  we  misunderstand  the  Upanishads  if  we 
try  to  systematize  them.  Just  as  in  the  old  Vedic  hymns 
we  find  all  of  these  illustrated  in  at  least  equal  fulness 
ritualistic,  henotheistic,  monotheistic,  and  monistic — so 
we  find  all  of  these  illustrated  in  at  least  eqtoal  fullness 
in  the  Upanishads.  They  (or  at  least  the  older  ones) 
contain  nothing,  or  hardly  anything,  essentially  new ;  they 
merely  carry  on  further  all  the  numerous  lines  of  thought 
started  in  the  Vedic  hymns — the  lines  of  thought  whose 
interrelationship  I  have  tried  briefly  to  sketch.  The  in- 
tellectual average  of  the  Upanishads  is  higher  than  that 
of  the  hymns,  because  they  are  later  and  more  advanced ; 
but  even  the  lowest  depths  of  Vedic  ritualism  can  be 
illustrated  by  Upanishad  passages.  They  are,  in  their 
essential  spirit,  tentative,  struggling,  searching;  not  dog- 
matic, final,  or  positive.  They  are  never  satisfied  with 
any  degree  of  attainment  in  the  formulation  of  their 
thoughts.  Instead  they  are  constantly  searching  for  new 
points  of  view.  With  a  restless  yearning  after  truth 
which  has  perhaps  never  been  surpassed  and  seldom 
equalled,  they  struggle  towards  peak  after  peak  of  mental 
achievement,  only  to  abandon  them  unhesitatingly  and 
unr  egret  fully,  in  the  hope  of  finding  a  higher  peak  beyond. 
'Between  the  peaks  they  sometimes  descend  into  what 
seem  to  us  low  swamps  of  the  commonplace,  and  some- 
times they  relapse  into  states  of  mind  which  ought  to 
have  been  long  since  forgotten;  but  who  can  live  con- 
stantly on  the  heights?  Absolute  Truth  is  what  they 
seek.  If  they  do  not  find  it,  that  is  not  their  fault.  It 
should  rather  be  put  down  to  their  credit  that  they  do 

133 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

not  delude  themselves  into  thinking  that  they  have  found 
it  permanently.  Let  him  who  has  found  it  permanently 
cast  the  first  stone  at  them ! 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

INDIAN  RELIGIONS  IN  GENERAL: 

A.  EARTH:  Les  Religions  de  I'lnde;  translated  by  J.  Wood,  The 
Religions  of  India.  Boston,  1882.  Though  now  out  of  date  in 
some  respects,  this  book  still  remains  one  of  prime  value,  and  is 
the  best  introduction  to  the  subject. 

E.  W.  HOPKINS  :  The  Religion  of  India.    Boston,  1895. 

VEDIC  RELIGION: 

M.  BLOOMFIELD  :   The  Religion  of  the  Veda.    New  York,  1908.    The 

best  work  on  the  hieratic  religion  of  the  Rig-veda;  it  does  not 

attempt  to  cover  the  popular  religion. 
H.  OLDENBERG:   Die  Religion  des  Veda.    Berlin,  1894. 
A.  B.  KEITH  :  The  Religion  and  Philosophy  of  the  Veda.    [In  press.] 

Cambridge,  Mass.,  1917. 

THE  FOLLOWING  ARE  MORE  FOR  THE  ADVANCED  STUDENT  I 

A.  HILLEBRANDT:  Vedische  Mythologie;  3  vols.,  Breslau,  1891-1902. 
Same  work,  Kleinere  Ausgabe  (abridged  in  one  small  volume), 
Breslau,  1910. 

A.  BERGAIGNE  :  La  religion  vedique.  3  vols.,  Paris,  1878-1883.  Vol. 
4,  Index  by  M.  Bloomfield,  Paris,  1897. 

A.  A.  MACDONELL:  Vedic  Mythology.    Strassburg,  1897. 

M.  BLOOMFIELD:  The  Atharva  Veda.  Strassburg,  1899.  Source- 
book  for  the  popular  religion. 

HIGHER  THOUGHT: 

P.  DEUSSEN  :  Allgemeine  Geschichte  der  Philosophic.  Band  I. 
Abteilung  I :  Allgemeine  Einleitung  und  Philosophic  des  Veda. 
Leipzig,  1894.  Abteilung  2 :  Die  Philosophic  der  Upanishaden. 
Leipzig,  1899. 

P.  DEUSSEN  :  [Abteilung  2  of  the  above  work,  translated  into  Eng- 
lish by]  A.  S.  Geden,  The  Philosophy  of  the  Upanishads.  Edin- 
burgh, 1906. 

TRANSLATIONS  : 

R.  T.  H.  GRIFFITH  :   The  Rigveda.  2d  Ed.,  2  vols.  Benares,  1896. 

W.  D.  WHITNEY  AND  C.  R.  LANMAN:  The  Atharva  Veda.  Cam- 
bridge, Mass.,  1905. 

M.  BLOOMFIELD:  Hymns  of  the  Atharva  Veda.  Oxford,  1897. 
[Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xlii.]  '  Selection  of  the  most 
interesting  materials. 

P.  DEUSSEN  :  Seckzig  Upanishads  des  Veda.  Leipzig,  1897.  By  far 
the  best  interpretation  of  the  Upanishads. 

F.  MAX  MULLER:    Upanishads.    Oxford,  1879,  1884.    [Sacred  Books 

of  the  East,  vols.  i,  xv.]    Twelve  Upanishads. 


134 


CHAPTER  VI 

BUDDHISM 
WITH  AN  ADDENDUM  ON  JAINISM 

BY  FRANKLIN  EDGERTON 

BUDDHISM  may  properly  be  called  a  Protestant  faith. 
It  sprang  up  at  a  time  when  Hinduism  in  the  wide  sense 
—Indian  thought  as  a  whole — had  since  long  passed  the 
tentative  stage  of  the  old  and  genuine  Upanishads.  Those 
works  were  already  enshrined  with  the  still  older  Vedic 
hymns  and  the  Brahmanas  as  works  of  sacred  revelation. 
The  Brahmanical  system  was  pretty  well  established  in  its 
classic  form,  as  we  shall  try  to  describe  it  in  our  next 
lecture.  The  common  characteristic  features  of  the  higher 
Hindu  religious  and  philosophical  thought  of  later  times 
were  all  firmly  established.  In  fact,  we  shall  presently 
see  that  Buddhism  never  thought  of  questioning  any  of 
those  intellectual  features  of  the  higher  Hinduism.  In 
that  respect  it  presented  nothing  inherently  new  or  hereti- 
cal. Moralizing  philosophers,  like  the  Buddha,  teaching 
doctrines  leading  to  salvation  through  right  knowledge  or 
intuition,  are  found  already  in  the  Upanishads ;  and  there 
are  many  such  in  later  orthodox  Hinduism. 

Nor  is  there  anything  in  the  Buddhist  attitude  towards 
the  brahmanical  rites  and  ceremonies  which  made  it  new 
or  necessarily  heretical.  This  may  seem  strange;  for 
certainly  the  Buddhists  absolutely  threw  overboard  all 
sacrifices  and  other  features  of  the  Brahmans'  cult.  But 
all  the  monistic  passages  of  the  Veda,  and  especially  those 
of  the  Upanishads,  preach  contempt  for  all  earthly  things, 
or  at  least  indifference  to  them.  And  they  do  not  scruple 
to  include,  sometimes  in  definite  terms,  the  priestly  cult 
among  these  earthly  things,  not  indeed  as  evil,  but  rather 

135 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

as  simply  beneath  the  notice  of  the  enlightened.  Sacri- 
fices, gifts,  prayers,  and  so  on  are  all  nothing  to  the 
Upanishads  in  their  loftiest  moments.  Likewise  all  the 
best  of  the  later  systems  of  Indian  philosophy — Sankhya, 
Yoga,  Vaigeshika,  Vedanta — imply  if  they  do  not  exactly 
preach  a  total  neglect  of  the  ritual. 

But  there  is  this  difference  between  those  systems  on 
the  one  hand  and  Buddhism,  as  well  as  the  rival  Protest- 
ant sect  of  Jainism,  on  the  other.  The  Upanishads,  and 
all  the  orthodox  Hindu  systems,  formally  acknowledge 
the  authority  of  the  Vedas.  In  fact,  more  accurately, 
the  Upanishads  are  themselves  part  of  the  Veda.  They 
regard  themselves,  and  are  regarded  in  later  times,  as  the 
culmination,  the  last  word,  the  New  Testament,  of  the 
Vedic  religion.  As  Jesus  said,  "  I  came  not  to  destroy 
•but  to  fulfil,"  referring  to  the  Mosaic  law  and  the  books 
of  the  Hebrew  prophets;  as  Jesus,  in  altering  or  reversing 
in  some  points  the  previous  religion  of  the  Jews,  regarded 
himself  as  only  perfecting,  and  by  no  means  as  opposing, 
the  Jewish  religion;  just  so  the  Upanishads  take  the 
position  that  the  Vedic  religion  is  all  right  as  far  as  it 
goes,  but  that  its  final  consummation  is  the  Upanishad 
doctrine.  And  so  all  the  later  orthodox  Hindu  systems 
at  least  formally  recognize  the  authority  of  the  Vedas, 
and  pay  lip-service  to  them,  however  inconsistent  with 
them  their  real  spirit  may  be. 

The  attitude  of  Buddhism  and  Jainism  is  wholly 
different.  They  definitely  and  in  polemic  terms  reject 
the  Vedas.  Not  only  the  Vedas,  but  the  whole  religious 
and  even  the  social  system  of  the  Brahmans.  Not  that 
they  reject  the  caste  system  (as  they  are  sometimes 
erroneously  said  to  have  done)  ;  but  they  are  not  willing, 
as  a  rule,  to  admit  the  superiority  of  the  Brahman  caste, 
which  was  a  fundamental  social  dogma  of  Brahmanism. 
Instead  the  Buddhists  frequently,  and  often  rather  po- 
lemically, assert  that  the  kshatriyas  or  nobles  are  the  first 

136 


BUDDHISM 

caste,  instead  of  being  second  to  the  Brahmans,  as  they 
are  in  the  Brahmanical  scheme.  The  fact  is  that  both 
Buddhism  and  Jainism  sprang  up  among  kshatriya  or 
noble  circles.  The  founders  of  both  sects  are  reputed 
to  have  been  kshatriyas ;  and  the  tradition,  whether  liter- 
ally true  or  not,  is  certainly  significant.  Their  first  appeal 
was  to  kshatriyas,  to  nobles — although  they  sought  to 
include  all  castes  within  their  orders,  and,  in  fact,  found 
many  ready  converts  among  the  Brahmans. 

It  is  for  these  reasons,  rather  than  because  of  the 
metaphysical,  theological,  or  ethical  views  they  main- 
tained, that  the  Buddhists  and  Jains  were  and  are  re- 
garded by  the  orthodox  Hindus  as  heterodox,  and  ex- 
cluded from  the  pale  of  Hinduism.  Had  they  been  will- 
ing to  pay  lip-homage  to  the  Vedas,  and  especially  to 
recognize  the  Brahman  caste  as  the  nominal  leaders  of 
society,  they  might  have  believed  in  anything  they  pleased 
and  still  passed  as  respectable,  as  did  various  other  sects 
whose  real  opinions  differ  in  no  important  respect  (except 
these)  from  those  of  the  Buddhists  and  Jains. 

The  Protestant  attitude  of  the  Buddhists  and  Jains 
towards  Brahmanism  is  strikingly  illustrated  by  the  lan- 
guages they  used  in  their  gospels.  They  rebelled  against 
the  Brahman  theory  that  religion  was  only  for  the  upper 
classes,  a  theory  which  finds  expression  in  the  well- 
known  Brahmanical  dogma  that  (Judras  and  outcasts 
might  not  even  hear  or  read  the  Vedas,  the  sacred  texts, 
much  less  take  part  in  the  services  of  the  ritual.  Bud- 
dhism and  Jainism  were  open  to  all  castes  and  to  those  of 
no  caste.  And  that  their  message  might  be  intelligible 
to  all  mankind,  they  discarded  the  Sanskrit  language,  the 
artificial  vehicle  of  Brahmanical  learning  and  culture, 
and  laid  down  the  principle  that  their  gospels  should  be 
preached  in  every  land  in  the  dialect  of  the  land  itself.  So, 
whereas  all  the  books  of  Brahmanical  wisdom  are  in  San- 
skrit, which  was  no  popular  speech  but  had  a  position  like 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

that  of  Latin  in  mediaeval  Europe,  the  earliest  texts  of  the 
Buddhists  and  Jains  were  composed  in  popular  dialects. 

The  Buddhists  of  the  northern  or  Mahayana  school 
did  not  keep  to  this  practice,  but  in  later  times  took  up 
the  use  of  Sanskrit,  imitating  the  Brahmans.  But  the 
southern  or  Hinayana  school  kept  closer  to  primitive 
Buddhism  in  this  respect,  as  well  as  in  respect  of  doc- 
trines. It  is  the  southern  school  that  prevails  to-day  in 
Ceylon,  Burma,  Siam,  and  Cambodja,  while  the  Buddhists 
of  Nepal,  Tibet,  China,  Japan,  and  Korea  adhere  to  the 
northern  Mahayana.  ( In  India  proper  Buddhism  is  now 
practically  extinct.)  The  language  in  which  the  South- 
ern Buddhist  texts  are  written  is  then  not  Sanskrit,  but 
an  ancient  popular  dialect  called  Pali.  This  is  an  Indian, 
not  a  Ceylonese,  dialect ;  and  we  do  not  know  just  where 
it  originally  flourished  as  a  spoken  language.  To  be  sure, 
it  too  has  become  in  the  course  of  time  a  literary  or 
rather  sacred  and  learned  language,  more  or  less  like 
what  Sanskrit  was  to  the  Brahmans.  The  Buddhist  monks 
used  it  for  writing  and  speaking  even  (occasionally)  on 
non-religious  subjects.  But  they  never  wholly  severed 
themselves  from  the  traditions  of  their  religion,  which 
demanded  that  the  religion  be  presented  to  all  peoples  in 
their  own  popular  idioms.  For  although  the  canon  became 
too  sacred  to  be  translated  into  popular  dialects,  the 
monks  composed  extensive  commentaries  in  the  languages 
of  the  various  countries  to  which  they  came.  And  these 
commentaries  served  the  purpose  of  making  the  essence  of 
the  religion  presentable  to  the  common  folk,  though  the 
sacred  texts  themselves  were  accessible  only  to  the  monks 
and  the  learned. 

The  Pali  literature  of  the  Southern  Buddhists  con- 
tains, then,  first  and  foremost,  the  sacred  texts  of  the 
Buddhist  religion,  in  the  form  accepted  by  this  school; 
and  secondly,  an  extensive  literature  (as  yet  not  very  fully 
explored  by  Europeans)  of  commentaries  and  other 

138 


BUDDHISM 

works,  mostly  of  a  religious  character,  at  least  nominally. 
The  sacred  canon  of  the  Buddhists  is  called  in  Pali  the 
Tipitaka  (in  Sanskrit  Tripitaka),  which  means  the  Three 
Baskets  or  Collections.  It  consists,  as  the  name  indicates, 
of  three  grand  divisions:  first,  the  Vinaya  Pitaka,  or 
Discipline  Basket,  consisting  primarily  of  rules  for  the 
behavior  of  the  order  of  monks  said  to  have  been  founded 
by  the  Buddha;  secondly,  the  Sutta  (Sanskrit  Sutra) 
Pitaka,  or  Sermon  Basket,  consisting  in  the  first  instance 
of  addresses  supposed  to  have  been  delivered  by  the 
Buddha,  and  of  other  utterances  of  his,  with  a  not  incon- 
siderable amount  of  other  material,  whose  original  right 
to  be  in  the  collection  is  at  times  questionable ;  and  thirdly, 
the  Abhidhamma  (Sanskrit  Abhidharma)  Pitaka,  some- 
times, though  questionably,  rendered  the  Metaphysical 
Basket,  which  contains  more  technical  and  scholastic  dis- 
quisitions on  Buddhist  dogmatics  and  on  formal  logic. 
All  that  we  can  say  with  an  approach  to  certainty  of  the 
date  of  this  canonical  literature  is  that  probably  few  if 
any  changes  have  been  introduced  into  it  since  a  few  cen- 
turies after  Christ,  while  its  oldest  parts  may  well  go 
back  to  the  times  of  the  Buddha  himself,  and  may  even 
contain  some  of  his  very  words.  His  dates  are  computed 
on  the  basis  of  the  best  Buddhist  tradition  as  approxi- 
mately 560  to  480  B.C. 

I  have  mentioned  the  chief  particulars  in  which  Bud- 
dhism differentiated  itself  sharply  from  the  general  run 
of  Hindu  systems.  It  is  none  the  less  true,  in  spite  of 
these  elements  of  Protestantism,  that  it  remained  a  thor- 
oughly Hindu  sect.  Its  most  fundamental  dogmas — one 
might  better  say  axioms  or  intellectual  points  of  view — are 
common  to  all  of  the  higher  post-Vedic  systems  of  Indian 
philosophy  and  religion.  In  order  to  understand  Buddhism 
at  all,  it  seems  to  me  necessary  at  the  start  briefly  to  out- 
line a  few  of  these  basic  axioms.  It  is  true  that  they 
are  no  more  characteristic  of  Buddhism  than  of  almost 

139 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

all  other  Hindu  sects;  but  it  is  none  the  less  true  that 
they  are  absolutely  fundamental  in  Buddhism.  I  shall 
present  them  under  three  headings:  first,  pessimism; 
second,  transmigration  (or,  as  it  is  better  to  say  in  Bud- 
dhism, rebirth),  with  which  is  inseparably  intertwined 
the  doctrine  familiarly  known  as  karma  or  "  deed;"  and 
third,  salvation  or  release. 

i.  PESSIMISM. — That  all  existence — at  least  all  em- 
piric existence  in  the  ordinary  sense — is  evil,  is  taken  for 
granted  without  question  and  almost  without  argument 
by  all  the  great  Hindu  systems.  Already  in  the  Upani- 
shads  this  belief  is  seen  in  process  of  development.  But 
in  them,  or  at  least  in  the  oldest  of  them,  it  is  hardly 
expressed  in  a  clear  way.  In  them  it  usually  takes  the 
form  of  a  depreciative  view  of  the  empiric  world  as 
contrasted  with  the  One  Ultimate  Reality,  whatever  it 
may  be  called,  Brahman  or  Atman  or  Sat  (Existent)  or 
the  like.  In  their  admiration  of  the  perfection  of  the 
Absolute  it  seems  to  them  that  "  Whatever  is  other  than 
That  is  evil,"  as  in  the  passage  previously  1  quoted  and 
in  various  similar  passages.  But  this  is  still  rather  inci- 
dental, almost  parenthetical.  With  the  later  Hindus  it  is 
a  very  different  matter.  Bred  in  their  bone  and  marrow, 
and  part  of  their  inmost  nature,  is  this  belief  that  all 
life  is  inherently  worthless  and  base  and  evil.  What  are 
commonly  regarded  as  the  pleasures  of  existence  are 
not  genuine  pleasures.  For  one  thing,  many  of  them  are 
or  may  be  attended  by  pain,  which,  or  the  fear  of  which, 
either  counterbalances  or  destroys  the  enjoyment  of  them. 
But  besides  this,  all  these  so-called  pleasures  are,  like 
everything  that  exists,  transitory  and  undependable,  sub- 
ject to  destruction  at  any  moment;  and  when  they  are 
gone,  the  recollection  of  them  leaves  the  misery  of  life 
darker  than  ever  by  contrast.  Moreover,  the  creatures  of 
this  round  of  existence  are  so  constructed  that  even  a  life 

1  Page  132  of  this  volume. 

140 


BUDDHISM 

of  perfect  and  continuous  indulgence  would  pall  at  last; 
these  joys,  as  they  are  vulgarly  called,  are  all  illusory 
and  bring  disgust  in  the  end.  Thus  in  brief  do  the  Hindus, 
when  they  take  the  trouble  to  argue  the  point  at  all, 
defend  their  great  thesis  that  whatever  is  (in  the  ordinary, 
empiric  sense)  is  bad.  This  thesis  is  formally  stated  by 
the  Buddhists  in  the  first  of  the  four  great  "  Noble 
Truths  "  upon  which  their  system  rests,  as  we  shall  see 
presently. 

(2)  TRANSMIGRATION  AND  KARMA. — But  if  life  is 
all  evil,  does  not  death  bring  release  from  it?  By  no 
means,  say  the  Hindus.  The  way  out  is  not  so  easy  as 
that.  Death  is  not  cessation  of  existence.  It  is  only 
passing  from  one  existence  into  another.  !*  Just  as  a 
caterpillar,  when  it  comes  to  the  end  of  a  blade  of  grass, 
gathers  itself  up  together  (to  go  over  to  another  grass- 
blade),  even  so  this  Spirit,  when  it  has  rid  itself  of  this 
body  and  cast  off  ignorance,  gathers  itself  up  together 
(to  go  over  into  another  body)  ;"  so  speaks  already  an 
Upanishad  text.2  In  fact,  the  history  of  the  belief  in  re- 
birth after  death  goes  back  much  further  than  the  Upani- 
shads.  But  I  cannot  here  trace  its  interesting  early  de- 
velopment ;  it  must  suffice  to  say  that  the  later  Hindu  doc- 
trine of  transmigration  appears  for  the  first  time  clearly 
stated  in  the  Upanishads ;  and  even  there  only  tentatively, 
for  older  views  still  persist  side  by  side  with  it.  The 
Upanishads  also  begin  to  join  with  this  doctrine  of  trans- 
migration the  old  doctrine  of  retribution  for  good  and  evil 
deeds  in  a  life  after  death.  The  belief  in  such  retribution, 
in  some  form  or  other,  is  found  all  over  the  world,  and 
various  forms  of  it  are  found  in  different  stages  of  Vedic 
religion.  With  the  transference  of  the  future  life  from 
a  mythical  other  world  to  this  earth,  and  with  the  ex- 
tension or  multiplication  of  it  to  an  indefinite  series  of 
future  lives  more  or  less  like  the  present  life,  the  way  is 


'Brihad  Aranyaka  Upanishad  4.4.4, 

141 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

prepared  for  the  characteristically  Hindu  doctrine  of 
karma  or  "  deed."  According  to  this  doctrine,  which  all 
Hindus  regard  as  axiomatic,  the  state  of  each  existence 
of  each  individual  is  absolutely  conditioned  and  deter- 
mined by  that  individual's  morality  in  previous  existences. 
A  man  is  exactly  what  he  has  made  himself  and  what  he 
therefore  deserves  to  be.  One  of  the  earliest  clear  ex- 
pressions of  this  view  is  found  in  this  Upanishad  pas- 
sage:3 "Just  as  (the  Soul)  is  (in  this  life)  of  this  or 
that  sort;  just  as  it  acts,  just  as  it  operates,  even  so  pre- 
cisely it  becomes  (in  the  next  life).  If  it  acts  well  it 
becomes  good;  if  it  acts  ill  it  becomes  evil.  As  a  result 
of  right  action  it  becomes  what  is  good ;  as  a  result  of  evil 
action  it  becomes  what  is  evil."  In  short,  the  law  of  the 
conservation  of  energy  is  rigidly  applied  to  the  moral 
world.  Every  action,  whether  good  or  bad,  must  of 
necessity  have  its  result  for  the  performer  of  the  action. 
If  in  the  present  life  a  man  is  on  the  whole  good,  his  next 
existence  is  better  by  just  so  much  as  his  good  deeds 
have  outweighed  his  evil  deeds.  Better — that  is,  less 
painful;  we  must  not  forget  that  these  are  merely  com- 
parative terms,  and  that  all  existence,  even  the  best,  is 
really  evil.  Men  of  very  exceptional  virtues  may  make 
themselves  gods;  for  there  are  gods,  yes  and  heavens, 
many  of  them,  according  to  the  Hindu  view.  Only  all 
the  gods  are  strictly  mortal  and  are  just  as  much  bound 
up  in  the  chain  of  existences  as  are  men.  The  life  of  the 
gods  differs  from  life  on  earth  only  in  that  it  is  compara- 
tively less  wretched,  and,  to  be  sure,  a  little  longer;  but 
what  is  a  few  thousand  years  more  or  less  in  comparison 
with  the  infinity  of  aeons  over  which  the  misery  of  exist- 
ence stretches?  Conversely,  those  men  who  are  excep- 
tionally wicked  either  are  reborn  as  lower  animals,  or  fall 
to  one  of  the  numerous  hells  which  counterbalance  the 
system  of  heavens.  And  all  this  is  not  carried  out  by 

•  Brihad  Aranyaka  Upanishad  4-4-6. 

142 


BUDDHISM 

decree  of  some  omnipotent  and  sternly  just  Power.  It 
is  a  natural  law.  It  operates  of  itself,  just  as  much  as  the 
law  of  gravitation.  It  is  therefore  wholly  dispassionate, 
neither  merciful  nor  vindictive.  It  is  absolutely  inescapa- 
ble ;  but  at  the  same  time  it  never  cuts  off  hope.  A  man 
is  what  he  has  made  himself ;  but  by  that  same  token  he 
may  make  himself  what  he  will.  The  so-ul  tormented  in 
the  lowest  hell  may  raise  himself  in  time  to  the  highest 
heaven,  simply  by  doing  right.  Perfect  justice  is  made 
the  basic  law  of  the  universe.  Opinions  may  differ  as 
to  the  absolute  truth  of  this  theory — I  am  not  discussing 
that;  but  as  to  its  moral  grandeur  and  perfection  I 
really  do  not  see  how  there  can  be  a  difference  of  opin- 
ion. How  clumsy,  as  an  instrument  of  moral  retribution, 
seems  in  comparison  with  this  the  belief  of  our  ancestors 
in  a  sharp  separation  of  the  "  sheep  "  from  the  "  goats  " 
and  a  once-for-all  Day  of  Judgment,  with  its  final  and 
unappealable  decree  and  its  sentence  for  all  eternity! 

Transmigration  and  retribution  by  karma  are  then, 
like  pessimism,  common  features  of  Hinduism  which  are 
retained  in  Buddhism  and  made  part  o*f  its  fundamental 
verities.  The  Buddhist  formulation  of  the  chain  of  exist- 
ence is  found  in  the  second  of  its  four  "  Noble  Truths," 
as  we  shall  see  later.  This  same  formulation  declares  that 
the  root  of  existence,  and  so  of  evil,  is  desire,  based  on 
ignorance.  Because  men  do  not  know  the  truth,  they 
cling  with  their  desires  to  the  false  joys  of  existence; 
this  causes  them  to  perform  acts,  and  these  acts  (karma) 
have,  as  we  have  seen,  their  necessary  fruition  in  rebirth. 
Even  this  full  statement  is  rooted  in  general  Hinduism. 
Already  in  the  Upanishads 4  we  hear :  "  This  Spirit 
of  Man  consists  simply  of  desire.  As  is  his  desire,  so  is 
his  resolve;  as  is  his  resolve,  so  is  the  deed  (karma)  that 
he  does;  as  is  the  deed  that  he  does,  so  is  that  (fate) 
which  he  attains  unto."  And  again,  the  perfected  soul 

4  Brihad  Aranyaka  Upanishad  4.4.7. 

143 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

is  that  which  "  has  no  desires,"  5  which  "  is  beyond  de- 
sire, has  dispensed  with  evil,  knows  no  fear,  is  free  from 
sorrow."  6 

This  unquestioning  acceptance  by  Buddhism  of  the 
doctrines  of  transmigration  and  karma  as  basic  axioms 
is  all  the  more  remarkable  because  of  the  Buddhistic 
attitude  on  the  subject  of  the  soul.  Strange  to  say,  the 
usual  Buddhist  view  is  that  there  is  no  soul  at  all,  neither 
individual  soul  nor  world  soul.  How  then  can  there  be 
transmigration?  Transmigration  in  the  literal  sense, 
perhaps  not;  but  there  is  rebirth,  nevertheless.  Each  liv- 
ing being,  according  to  Buddhism,  is  made  up  of  five 
constituent  elements,  called  in  Pali  khandhas  (Sanskrit 
skandhas),  which  compose  his  personality;  there  is  no 
ego  in  any  other  sense.  These  elements  resolve  themselves 
at  death;  but  nevertheless,  in  some  way  which  the  texts 
themselves  admit  to  be  "  mysterious  "  and  which  is,  in 
fact,  quite  inconceivable,  they  are  compelled  by  the  karma 
or  actions  of  the  individual  in  the  preceding  existence 
to  reunite  and  form  a  new  individual,  who  is,  however, 
the  very  same  as  the  old,  because  the  karma  is  imperish- 
able and  keeps  up  the  continuity  of  existence.  Buddhism 
is  very  weak  metaphysically;  in  fact,  we  shall  see  that  in 
its  best  and  most  typical  moods  it  declines  to  enter  into 
metaphysics  at  all.  It  might  better  have  stuck  to  this  rule. 
The  doctrine  of  the  khandhas  as  a  substitute  for  the  soul 
is  interesting  principally  because  it  shows  how  ingrained 
was  the  belief  in  rebirth.  It  was  so  ingrained  that  the 
Buddhists  never  thought  of  questioning  it,  but,  in  fact, 
based  their  whole  system  upon  it — although  according  to 
them  there  is  no  soul  to  transmigrate !  And  this  forced 
them  into  the  shallow  mystery  of  the  khandhas. 

(3)   SALVATION. — Is  there,  however,  no  way  in  which 
one  may  finally  escape  from  all  existence?     Since  even 

9  Ibid.,  4.3.21. 

*  Ibid.,  4.3.22. 

144 


BUDDHISM 

the  best  of  it  is  evil,  are  we  hopelessly  chained  to  an  eter- 
nity of  misery  ?  Is  there  no  salvation  ?  All  sects  answer 
yes ;  and,  in  fact,  each  sect  makes  it  its  prime  business  to 
point  the  way  to  it.  That  is  the  aim  of  religion  and 
philosophy  in  India:  to  show  how  man  may  be  released 
from  this  round  of  existences,  consisting  wholly  of  mis- 
ery. One  who  has  reached  the  goal,  and  freed  himself 
from  the  last  links  of  the  chain  binding  him  to  existence, 
attains  Nirvana.  This  is  a  term  common  to  all  sects; 
and  the  concept  which  it  covers  is  practically  about  the 
same  in  all,  though  philosophically  there  are  widely  differ- 
ent definitions.  Generally  speaking,  it  is  at  least  a  cessa- 
tion of  conscious  individual  existence.  This  need  not 
mean  what  it  does  mean  to  strict  and  original  Buddhism, 
absolute  annihilation.  It  may  mean  perfect  fusion  of  the 
individual  personality  in  the  World-soul,  the  All,  the 
Brahman;  so  in  the  Vedanta  philosophy.  It  may  mean 
total  and  final  separation  of  the  soul  from  all  matter  and 
so  from  all  material  processes,  which  include  all  of  what 
we  call  mentality  and  consciousness;  so  in  the  Sankhya 
philosophy.  At  any  rate,  it  is  always  what  may  for  prac- 
tical purposes  be  called  non-existence.  If  we  neverthe- 
less find  Nirvana  referred  to  and  described,  even  in 
Buddhist  texts,  as  a  state  of  perfect  bliss,  which  after  all 
in  strict  logic  must  imply  being,  we  must  not  press  those 
passages  too  far.  They  may  be  merely  poetic  expressions 
of  the  devotee's  yearning;  or  they  may  mark  an  occa- 
sional lapse  into  the  every-day  language  of  man's  more 
primitive  feelings  and  emotions. 

The  method  by  which  one  may  attain  Nirvana  varies 
to  some  extent  in  the  several  sects.  Generally  speaking, 
however,  the  basis  of  the  method  is  intellectual,  or  per- 
haps rather  intuitive;  at  least  in  most  cases  the  sine  qua 
non  is  the  knowledge  or  realization  of  some  truth.  Ignor- 
ance (avidya)  is  generally  the  root  of  existence  and  so 
of  evil ;  we  have  already  seen  that  in  Buddhism,  for  in- 

10  I4S 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

stance,  it  is  ignorance  that  causes  desire,  which  causes 
action,  which  leads  to  continued  existence.  Good  deeds  in 
themselves,  certainly,  can  never  bring  release ;  they  result 
in  less  unhappy  existences,  but  that  is  all. 

All  systems,  however,  prescribe  various  preliminary 
steps  and  practices  which  they  regard  as  being  useful 
in  preparing  the  soul  for  the  reception  of  the  enlighten- 
ment which  will  finally  bring  release.  And  occasionally 
these  preliminary  steps  become  so  prominent  in  the  minds 
of  some  sectaries  that  they  obscure,  and  in  some  cases 
even  obliterate,  what  was  originally  the  true  goal.  Chief 
among  these  avenues  of  approach  to  true  knowledge, 
which,  however,  occasionally  lead  off  into  seductive  by- 
paths, are  two.  One  is  devotion  to  the  personality  of 
some  god  or  prophet,  who  is  regarded  as  a  kind  of  per- 
sonal savior  or  helper  on  the  way  to  release.  The  other 
is  the  practice  of  asceticism  in  some  form  or  other,  re- 
garded as  helping  to  prepare  for  enlightenment  by  freeing 
the  individual  from  attachment  to  the  world,  by  gradually 
conquering  the  natural  desires  of  the  flesh. 

The  three  standard  Hindu  means  or  aids  to  attaining 
Nirvana  are,  then,  first  and  foremost,  knowledge  of  the 
religious  truth;  second,  personal  devotion  to  some  god 
or  saint  around  whom  the  religion  centers,  and  who  helps 
his  devotees  to  gain  enlightenment;  third,  the  ascetic 
life  in  some  form.  Now  the  regular  Buddhist  confession 
of  faith,  repeated  by  all  who  adhere  to  the  religion,  is 
the  thrice-repeated  formula  called  the  Three  Jewels,  or 
gems  of  the  faith:  "I  go  to  the  Buddha  for  refuge;  I 
go  to  the  Law  (dhamma)  for  refuge:  I  go  to  the  Con- 
gregation for  refuge."  Here  are  all  the  three  items — 
but  with  the  significant  change  that  personal  devotion  to 
the  Buddha,  which  implies  acceptance  of  his  life  as  an 
example,  is  put  first.  Only  second  comes  the  Law — that 
is,  the  religious  truth  proclaimed  by  him.  And  finally, 
there  is  adhesion  to  the  order  of  monks  which  he  is  said 

146 


BUDDHISM 

to  have  founded,  the  communion  of  saints ;  which  involves 
a  monastic  mode  of  life. 

We  can  hardly  believe  that  this  creed  dates  from  the 
earliest  times.  The  glorification  of  the  person  of  the 
Buddha  in  particular  looks  secondary ;  it  has  no  place  in 
the  scheme  of  salvation  as  it  is  represented  to  have  been 
laid  down  by  the  Buddha  himself.  It  was,  by  the  way, 
carried  much  farther  by  the  Mahayana  or  Northern 
Buddhists ;  they  deified  the  Buddha  outright,  and  offered 
quasi-brahmanical  sacrifices  to  him,  in  imitation  of  the 
Vishnuite  cults  which  make  so  much  of  bhakti,  "  devo- 
tion "  to  the  god  or  saint. 

Let  us,  however,  follow  the  accepted  statement  of 
the  creed,  and  look  into  the  content  of  each  of  its  terms 
as  they  present  themselves  to  the  pious  believer. 

( i )  THE  BUDDHA. — For  a  long  time  it  has  been  cus- 
tomary to  speak  of  the  date  of  the  death  of  Buddha, 
traditionally  put  at  about  480  B.C./  as  the  first  approxi- 
mately certain  date  in  the  history  of  India.  In  very  recent 
times,  however,  doubts  have  been  expressed,  or  rather 
doubts  which  were  expressed  much  earlier  have  been 
revived  on  the  basis  of  new  evidence,  as  to  the  historicity  of 
the  Buddha.  It  is  now  doubted  by  some  students  of 
Buddhism,  whether  all  the  traditional  details  of  the  life 
of  the  Master  are  not  myths,  and  even  whether  he  existed 
at  all  as  a  historical  personage. 

Whether  these  doubts  are  justified  or  not,  I  cannot 
decide.  Furthermore,  I  cannot  feel  that  it  is  a  matter 
of  much  practical  importance.  If  the  Buddha  is  a  myth, 
he  is  a  great  and  noble  myth,  and  he  has  played  the  role 
of  a  reality  in  the  lives  of  many  hundreds  of  millions  of 
people,  who  have  derived  from  the  example  of  his  sup- 
posed life,  as  much  as  from  the  teachings  which  pass 
under  his  name,  religious  comfort,  inspiration,  and 
guidance. 

According  to  Buddhist  belief,  then,  the  founder  of 

i47 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

Buddhism  was  a  man  named  Siddhartha,  oT  the  family 
Gautama.  He  was  a  member  of  a  minor  kshatriya  or 
noble  tribe  called  the  ^akyas,  who  lived  at  Kapila-vastu, 
in  the  foothills  of  the  Himalayas,  near  the  modern  Nepal. 
From  the  tribal  name  (Jakya  is  derived  one  of  the 
•Buddha's  most  common  titles,  (Jakyamuni,  the  Sage  of 
the  (Jakyas.  While  quite  a  young  man  he  determined  to 
abandon  the  world,  and  sought  refuge  in  an  ascetic  order; 
but  he  found  no  peace  in  it,  and  left  it  again.  After 
many  spiritual  struggles  he  finally  discovered  that  he 
had  a  new  message  to  proclaim,  a  new  gospel  of  salva- 
tion. It  is  at  this  point,  properly,  that  the  title  Buddha 
becomes  applicable  to  him ;  the  word  means  the  Enlight- 
ened One,  and  is,  like  Christ,  a  title  referring  to  him  as 
founder  of  the  religion.  Resisting  the  temptations  of 
Mara,  the  Evil  One,  who  tempted  him  to  use  his  new 
knowledge  for  his  own  benefit  by  attaining  Nirvana  at 
once,  he  set  out  to  proclaim  his  message  to  the  world. 
Converting  first  a  few  disciples,  he  founded  his  order  of 
monks  (afterwards  of  nuns  also),  and  thereafter  spent 
his  life  alternately  in  wandering  about  and  in  resting 
with  his  followers  in  various  places — always  preaching 
and  teaching.  He  is  said  to  have  lived  to  be  eighty 
years  old. 

(2)  THE  CONGREGATION  (SANGHA). — Departing 
from  the  accepted  order  of  the  Buddhist  confession,  we 
shall  take  up  next  the  third  of  the  "  Three  Jewels/'  the 
congregation,  that  is  the  order  of  monks  and  nuns.  For 
Buddhism  is  essentially  a  monastic  religion.  It  teaches 
that  the  life  of  a  monk,  who  has  severed  all  connection 
with  temporal  affairs,  abandoned  home,  possessions,  and 
family-ties,  and  taken  up  the  homeless  life;  who  subsists 
wholly  on  alms,  and  is  forbidden  to  own  any  property, 
forbidden  even  to  accept  in  alms  anything  except  the  bare 
necessities  of  life,  and  of  them  only  barely  enough  at 
any  one  time  for  his  own  immediate  needs, — that  this  life 

148 


BUDDHISM 

is  the  one  and  only  mode  of  life  in  which  one  can  hope  to 
obtain  release.  And  this  mode  of  life  is  open  to  all  men, 
not  limited  to  any  select  group  or  caste.  Within  the 
order  caste-lines  are  abolished;  all  monks  are  brothers. 
Some  of  the  Buddha's  immediate  disciples  are  said  to 
have  been  persons  of  low-caste  origin. 

But  Buddhism  makes  a  great  and  all-important  dis- 
tinction between  monasticism  and  extreme  asceticism. 
What  distinguishes  the  Buddhist  order  from  the  numer- 
ous other  orders  of  Indian  ascetics,  and  sects  of  un- 
organized holy  men,  as  well  as  from  many  orders  of 
Christian  monks,  is  that  the  others,  or  at  least  many  of 
them,  regarded  self-mortification,  sometimes  in  very  ex- 
treme forms,  as  the  most  meritorious  thing.  Buddhism, 
on  the  other  hand,  stands  definitely  opposed  to  such  harsh 
and  unnatural  practices.  Simplicity  is  rigorously  insisted 
upon;  but  self-torture  is  as  rigorously  forbidden.  The 
Middle  Way,  the  Way  of  Peace,  Calm,  and  Composure, 
is  what  Buddha  preaches.  Avoid  all  extremes,  the  ex- 
treme of  asceticism  as  well  as  the  extreme  of  worldliness! 

Why,  then,  you  may  ask,  should  Buddhism  advocate 
the  monkish  life  at  all  ?  Why  not  let  men  live  like  normal 
human  beings,  enjoining  them  merely  to  uprightness  and 
justice  in  their  dealings  with  their  fellow-men  ?  Buddhism 
answers:  because  it  is  impossible  to  live  in  the  world 
without  taking  part  in  it;  without  having,  at  least  to 
some  extent,  worldly  interests  and  so  worldly  desires. 
Desire  is  the  root  of  existence,  and  existence  is  all  evil. 
No  one  can  hope  to  free  himself  completely  from  desire, 
which  is  the  only  way  to  salvation,  except  by  withdrawing 
from  the  world. 

It  should  be  said  that  the  Buddhist  order  of  monks 
was  not,  like  most  Christian  orders,  a  hard  and  fast 
group,  which  having  once  entered  one  could  never  leave. 
On  the  contrary,  it  was  recognized  as  possible  for  a  man 
to  enter  the  order  temporarily,  with  not  even  any  inten- 

149 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

tion  of  remaining  in  it  permanently.  The  great  Buddhist 
emperor  Agoka  is  said  thus  to  have  entered  the  order 
several  times,  for  periods  of  time;  and  the  same  was 
frequently  done  by  others.  The  salutary  effect  which 
membership  in  the  order  brings  can  be  acquired  in  a  lesser 
degree  by  temporary  association  with  it.  Buddhism  has 
this  feature  in  common  with  a  number  of  other  Indian 
orders.  Of  course  such  temporary  association  cannot 
lead  to  the  final  goal,  to  the  complete  cessation  of  desires 
and  so  of  existence.  But,  then,  neither  does  permanent 
membership  in  the  order  of  itself  confer  this  benefit. 
Only  a  certain  state  of  mind  can  do  that.  The  monastic 
life  is  important  as  one  of  the  necessary  preliminaries 
leading  to  this  state  of  mind;  it  is  only  a  means,  not  an 
end  in  itself. 

What  the  real  end  of  the  religion  is,  we  learn  when 
we  take  up  the  third  (in  the  Buddhist  formulation  the 
second)  of  the  three  "  Jewels  "  of  the  Buddhist  faith, 
namely : 

(3)  THE  LAW. — The  cardinal  doctrine  of  Buddhism 
is  summed  up  in  the  formula  of  the  Four  Noble  Truths, 
attributed  to  the  Buddha  himself.  These  are: 

1.  The  Noble  Truth  of  Suffering,  namely: 

Birth  is  suffering;  old  age  is  suffering;  disease  is 
suffering;  death  is  suffering;  sorrow,  lamentation,  misery, 
grief,  and  despair  are  suffering;  union  with  the  unloved 
is  suffering;  separation  from  the  loved  is  suffering;  any 
unsatisfied  desire  is  suffering;  in  short,  all  the  five  attach- 
ment groups  (the  five  elements  of  sentient  existence,  that 
is,  collectively,  all  forms  of  sentient  existence)  are 
suffering. 

In  this  first  Noble  Truth  we  have  the  Buddhistic 
formulation  of  the  common  Hindu  pessimism  with  regard 
to  the  world. 

2.  The   Noble  Truth   of   the   Cause   of    Suffering, 
namely : 

150 


BUDDHISM 

It  is  desire,  leading  to  rebirth,  joining  itself  to  pleas- 
ure and  passion,  and  finding  delight  in  every  existence; 
desire,  namely,  for  sensual  pleasure,  desire  for  future 
life,  desire  for  prosperity  in  this  life. 

Here  we  have  the  common  Hindu  view  that  desire 
is  the  root  of  existence,  because  (though  this  is  not 
clearly  stated  in  the  formula)  it  leads  to  action,  which 
must  bear  fruit  in  continued  existence.  The  third  Truth 
is  a  necessary  inference  from  the  first  two: 

3.  The  Noble  Truth  of  the  Release  from  Suffering, 
namely : 

It  is  the  complete  fading-out  and  cessation  of  this  de- 
sire, a  giving-up,  a  getting  rid,  a  relinquishment,  an 
emancipation  from  this  desire. 

Finally, 

4.  The  Noble  Truth  of  the  Way  to  the  Release  from 
Suffering,  namely: 

It  is  the  noble  eight- fold  path,  to  wit,  right  belief, 
right  resolve,  right  speech,  right  behavior,  right  occupa- 
tion, right  effort,  right  contemplation,  right  concentration. 

All  of  the  elements  of  these  four  Noble  Truths  are 
elaborated  at  great  length  in  the  technical  Buddhist 
works ;  especially  the  last,  the  eight- fold  Noble  Path  lead- 
ing to  the  Release  from  Suffering,  which  of  course  is  the 
final  goal — in  short,  Nirvana.  Its  eight  stages  are  made 
to  include  a  complete  program  of  moral  and  intellectual 
advance,  leading  to  final  perfection.  Thus,  right  belief, 
the  first  of  the  eight  stages,  is  defined  as  belief  in  the 
Four  Noble  Truths  themselves.  This  is  necessary  as  a 
starting-point.  Then,  right  resolve  is  the  resolve  to  re- 
nounce sensual  pleasures,  to  have  malice  towards  none, 
and  to  harm  no  living  creature.  Right  speech  is  absten- 
tion from  falsehood,  slander,  harsh  language,  and  fri- 
volity of  speech.  Right  behavior  is  abstention  from  the 
taking  of  life,  from  theft,  and  from  fornication.  Right 
occupation  is  the  shunning  of  professions  and  means  of 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

livelihood  which  are  in  themselves  bad  and  the  cleaving 
to  those  that  are  good.  Right  effort  is  the  strenuous  and 
heroic  and  constant  endeavor  of  the  mind  to  get  rid  of 
all  evil  and  impure  qualities  and  to  cultivate  the  good  and 
pure  qualities  (which  are  carefully  denned  in  great  de- 
tail). Right  contemplation  is  the  life  of  one  that  is 
actively  conscious  of  the  elements  of  being  without  allow- 
ing them  to  affect  him  with  joy  or  sorrow.  Right  concen- 
tration is  a  state,  or  rather  a  series  of  states,  of  mystic 
trance,  culminating  in  the  fourth  and  highest  of  the 
states  of  trance,  "  which  has  neither  joy  nor  sorrow, 
but  is  contemplation  refined  by  indifference."  This  last 
state  is  practically  a  foretaste  of  Nirvana — although  to 
describe  it  as  such  would  not  be  consistent  with  the  Bud- 
dhist theory,  for  Nirvana  can  only  come  after  death, 
with  the  dissolution  of  all  "  form." 

This  simple  scheme  of  salvation  is  the  central  point  of 
primitive  Buddhism.  As  time  went  on  it  became  more 
and  more  developed  and  elaborated  and  schematized  in 
all  its  details.  Indeed,  the  later  Buddhist  schools  went 
much  farther,  and  attempted  to  construct  elaborate  sys- 
tems of  metaphysics  and  psychology,  to  match  the  other 
Hindu  systems.  It  seems  to  have  been  characteristic  of 
early  Buddhism  that  it  not  only  failed  to  provide  much 
of  a  metaphysical  theory,  but  distinctly  took  the  ground 
that  metaphysics  was  useless,  worse  than  useless,  in  fact, 
since  it  distracted  the  attention  from  the  things  that  are 
alone  worth  while.  In  a  very  interesting  old  dialogue7 
found  in  the  Sutta  Pitaka  or  "  Sermon  Basket,"  a  monk- 
named  Malunkyaputta  is  represented  as  coming  to  the 
Buddha  and  complaining  that  the  Buddha  has  not  eluci- 
dated such  questions  as  these:  Is  the  world  eternal  or 
not?  Is  the  world  infinite  (in  space)  or  finite?  Are 

7  The  Lesser  Malunkyaputta  Sutta,  in  the  Majjhima  Nikaya ; 
translated  by  Warren,  Buddhism  in  Translations  (Cambridge,  Mass., 
1896),!).  117  ff. 

152 


BUDDHISM 

the  soul  and  the  body  identical  or  not?  Dbes  the  saint 
continue  to  exist  after  death  or  not?  The  monk  is 
offended  by  this  neglect  of  questions  which  he  considers 
important,  and  states  frankly  his  feeling  that  he  cannot 
continue  to  adhere  to  the  Buddha's  doctrine  unless  the 
Buddha  explains  these  questions.  The  Buddha  answers 
him  in  this  wise :  "  Suppose  a  man  were  wounded  with  a 
poisoned  arrow.  His  friends  would  urge  him  to  have  it 
treated  by  a  physician  or  surgeon.  Suppose  then  the 
wounded  man  should  say :  *  I  will  not  have  this  arrow 
taken  out  until  I  learn  to  what  caste  the  man  who  wounded 
me  belonged,  what  his  name  and  family  were,  what  his 
size,  physical  appearance,  and  place  of  residence  were, 
and  the  exact  nature  of  the  materials  used  in  making  the 
arrow,  the  bowstring,  and  the  bow/  What  would  be- 
come of  such  a  man?  Would  he  not  die  of  the  poisoned 
wound  before  he  found  out  the  answers  to  all  these  ques- 
tions? And  what  difference  do  all  the  questions  really 
make?  It  is  just  so  with  the  Buddha's  doctrine  of  the 
religious  life.  The  religious  life  does  not  depend  on  the 
nature  of  the  world  or  on  the  nature  of  the  soul.  What- 
ever the  nature  of  the  world  or  of  the  soul  may  be,  there 
still  remains  existence,  which  is  suffering,  and  the  elimina- 
tion of  which  it  is  my  business  to  teach.  I  have  not 
elucidated  the  questions  you  refer  to  because  they  profit 
not,  nor  do  they  have  anything  to  do  with  the  fundamen- 
tals of  religion,  nor  do  they  tend  to  Nirvana.  What  I 
have  elucidated  is  only  that  which  does  profit,  which  does 
concern  the  fundamentals  of  religion,  and  which  does  lead 
to  Nirvana,  namely  this :  the  truth  of  suffering,  the  origin 
of  suffering,  the  release  from  suffering,  and  the  way  to 
the  release  from  suffering." 

The  practical  ethics  of  Buddhism,  like  its  most  funda- 
mental beliefs,  is  essentially  the  same  as  that  of  all  the 
higher  forms  of  Hinduism.  It  enjoins  patience,  kind- 

153 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

ness,  long-suffering,  meekness,  love  of  all  creatures,  and 
especially  the  abstention  from  doing  any  wilful  injury  to 
living  beings;  the  abandonment  of  all  unkindness  and 
malice,  even  towards  one's  enemies;  truthfulness,  justice, 
and  in  short  all  the  virtues  generally  accepted  by  the 
highest  ethical  systems  of  the  world,  including  that  of 
Jesus.  Over  all  is  cast  as  it  were  the  veil  of  moderation. 
This  may  almost  be  called  the  cardinal  Buddhist  virtue, 
or  rather  a  qualification  of  its  entire  code  of  virtues. 
If  Buddhism  has  a  distinctive  quality  on  the  ethical  side, 
it  is  this.  Excessive  zeal,  even  in  a  cause  which  is  in 
itself  righteous,  is  deprecated,  as  apt  to  defeat  its  own 
ends.  This  moderation,  this  avoidance  of  extremes  and 
readiness  to  meet  human  nature  half  way,  is  probably  one 
of  the  secrets  of  the  enormous  success  of  Buddhism  as  a 
missionary  religion.  To  mention  one  example:  like  all 
higher  forms  of  Hinduism,  Buddhism  preaches  ahinsa  or 
non-injury  of  any  living  being.  This  implies,  of  course, 
abstention  from  the  eating  o*f  meat.  And  good  Buddhists 
are  therefore  specifically  commanded  to  observe  a  vege- 
tarian diet.  Nevertheless,  if  one  is  offered  hospitality, 
and  the  meal  set  before  one  by  the  host  consists  of  meat,  it 
is  not  sinful  to  partake  of  it.  To  refuse  to  do  so  would 
injure  and  insult  the  host,  and  would  do  no  good,  since 
it  would  not  restore  life  to  the  slaughtered  animal.  The 
statement  is  still  found  in  some  even  very  recent  authori- 
ties that  the  Buddha  himself  died  from  indigestion  caused 
by  a  hearty  meal  of  roast  pork,  offered  him  by  a  simple 
peasant  (a  "son  of  a  smith")  at  whose  hut  the  aged 
saint  stopped  one  evening.  It  is  too  bad  that  this  state- 
ment cannot  now  be  accepted.  It  illustrates  in  a  very  true 
and  poignant  way  the  Buddha's  attitude  on  just  this  sub- 
ject; we  can  hardly  doubt  that  the  Buddha  would  have 
eaten  the  meal  if  it  had  consisted  of  pork  (even  though 
pork  is  a  particularly  unclean  meat  in  India,  eaten  only 
by  the  lowest  classes).  But  the  fact  is  that  the  story  is 

154 


BUDDHISM 

based  on  a  misunderstanding  of  an  ambiguous  Pali  word. 
The  Chinese  version  of  the  story  proves  that  it  was  a 
meal  of  mushrooms,  not  of  pork,  which,  according  to 
^Buddhist  tradition,  caused  the  death  of  the  Master. 

BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY. — In  recent  years  it  has 
been  much  discussed  whether  early  Christianity  shows  any 
signs  of  influence  from  Buddhism.  The  similarities  be- 
tween the  ethical  doctrines  of  the  two  religions  are  obvi- 
ous. But  it  is  now  generally  admitted  that  there  is  no 
particular  reason  to  suspect  any  interinfluence  on  that 
ground.  It  simply  means  that  the  highest  ethical  prin- 
ciples of  different  parts  of  the  human  race  tend  to  co- 
incide. More  significant  seem  to  be  coincidences  in  cer- 
tain stories,  legends,  or  narratives,  found  in  the  sacred 
or  semi-sacred  books  of  the  two  faiths.  There  is  no 
doubt  at  all  that  in  the  second,  third,  and  fourth  centuries 
A.D.,  if  not  earlier,  some  Buddhist  legends  wandered  to 
the  west  and  became  incorporated  in  Christian  literature. 
The  apocryphal  gospels  and  the  lives  of  the  saints  contain 
a  number  of  such  Hindu — and  generally  Buddhistic — 
legends.  Nay,  the  story  of  the  life  of  the  Buddha  him- 
self is  found,  in  unmistakable  form,  as  the  story  of  St. 
Josaphat ;  which  name  is  itself  a  corruption  of  the  Sanskrit 
Bodhisattva,  the  title  of  the  Buddha  before  he  became 
buddha  ("  enlightened  ")— that  is,  the  "  Future  Buddha." 
In  other  words,  the  figure  of  St.  Josaphat,  who  is  found 
in  the  calendar  of  both  the  Greek  and  the  Roman 
churches,  presents  the  remarkable  spectacle  of  the  incor- 
poration in  Christianity,  as  a  saint,  of  the  founder  of 
Christianity's  greatest  rival  for  world-supremacy — Bud- 
dhism. If  there  are  any  Greek  or  Roman  Catholic  churches 
dedicated  to  St.  Josaphat,  they  are  really  dedicated  to  the 
Buddha,  little  as  the  worshipers  may  guess  the  fact. 

Such  borrowings  as  these  are,  however,  comparatively 
late  in  the  history  of  Christianity.  With  the  canonical 

155 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

gospels  the  case  is  much  less  clear.  Some  striking  paral- 
lels have  been  pointed  out  even  in  them.  According  to 
the  latest  pronouncement  by  the  highest  authority  on  this 
subject  now  living  in  the  world,  Professor  Garbe,  of  the 
University  of  Tubingen,8  there  are  four  narratives  in 
the  Christian  gospels  which  are  probably  derived  from 
Buddhist  sources,  through  indirect  channels  of  oral  tra- 
dition. These  are :  ( i )  the  angel  chorus  which  announces 
the  miraculous  birth  of  the  Saviour;  (2)  the  temptation; 
(3)  the  miraculous  walking  on  the  water  of  the  disciple 
(Peter),  with  his  rescue  by  the  Master  when  by  reason 
of  insufficient  faith  he  began  to  sink;  (4)  the  miraculous 
feeding  of  the  multitude.9 

The  question  whether  particular  stories  in  the  Chris- 
tian gospels  are  borrowed  from  similar  Buddhistic  stories 
or  not  is  a  difficult  one  to  decide,  because  of  the  lack  of 
definite  criteria  for  judging.  There  is  as  yet  no  agree- 
ment among  scholars  on  the  subject.  Such  borrowing  as 
may  have  taken  place  must  have  been  mostly  from  Bud- 
dhism into  Christianity,  and  not  vice  versa,  because  most 
of  the  sacred  texts  of  Buddhism  go  back  to  pre-Christian 
times.10  But  at  any  rate,  if  there  were  such  borrowings, 
we  may  be  sure  that  they  were  not  numerous.  In  the 
main,  Buddhism  and  Christianity  are  certainly  inde- 
pendent of  each  other,  in  their  sacred  stories  as  well  as 
in  their  ethical  principles. 

8  In  his  book  Indien  und  das  Christentum,  Tubingen,  1914. 

"The  most  complete  collection  of  parallels  between  the  sacred 
books  of  Buddhism  and  Christianity  is  found  in  the  work  of  Albert  J. 
Edmunds,  Buddhist  and  Christian  Gospels,  Philadelphia,  2  vols., 
1908.  Edmunds,  however,  does  not  believe  that  most  of  his  parallels 
are  borrowed.  To  him  they  mostly  indicate  only  the  general  simi- 
larity between  the  two  religions.  Garbe,  in  the  above-mentioned 
work,  acknowledges  his  indebtedness  to  the  work  of  Edmunds. 

10  The  contrary  has  been  maintained  by  some  in  the  past,  and 
is  argued  very  recently  by  J.  Kennedy  in  tlie  Journal  of  the  Royal 
Asiatic  Society  for  April  and  July,  1917.  Kennedy,  whose  articles 
have  appeared  since  I  wrote  the  above,  thinks  such  borrowings  as 
occurred  in  the  earliest  Christian  times  were  in  the  other  direction — 
from  West  to  East.  His  arguments  do  not  convince  me. 

156 


BUDDHISM 

ADDENDUM  :  A  BRIEF  NOTE  ON  JAINISM. 

About  the  same  time  that  Buddhism  was  founded, 
another  very  similar  heretical  sect  arose,  which  is  known 
as  Jainism.  It  is  said  to  have  been  founded  by  a  some- 
what older  contemporary  of  the  Buddha,  named  Vardha- 
mana;  he  is  commonly  called  Mahavira,  which  means 
Great  Hero,  and  is,  like  Buddha,  only  a  title  of  respect 
given  to  the  Master  by  his  followers.  Like  Buddha, 
Vardhamana  was  a  kshatriya,  and  his  religion  is  similar 
to  Buddhism  in  its  attitude  towards  Hindu  orthodoxy. 
Indeed,  its  tenets  generally  are  very  close  to  those  of 
Buddhism.  It  does  not,  however,  emphasize  the  virtue 
of  moderation  which  is  so  important  in  Buddhism.  And 
in  its  canonical  texts,  at  least  in  their  present  form,  there 
is  not  the  aversion  to  abstract  philosophy  that  is  found 
in  early  Buddhism.  There  is,  on  the  contrary,  a  great 
deal  of  speculation,  though  of  a  very  crude  sort;  meta- 
physically, Jainism  ranks  low  among  Hindu  systems.  I 
will  mention  only  one  of  its  most  curious  beliefs;  it  is 
that  there  are  individual,  separate,  living  souls  in  abso- 
lutely all  parts  of  nature.  Fire,  wind,  stones,  wood,  in 
short  all  vegetable  and  inanimate  nature  is  peopled  by 
souls,  just  like  animal  souls,  and  like  them  included  in 
the  range  of  transmigration,  so  that  it  is  conceivable 
that  a  man  might  be  reborn  not  only  as  a  worm  or  a 
gnat  (as  all  Hindus  believe)  but  even  as  a  stick  or  a 
stone.  This  is  not  a  primitive  animism,  though  it  is 
equally  crude  when  stated  thus  baldly,  and  has  not  the 
excuse  of  the  naivete  and  ignorance  of  primitive  ani- 
mistic tribes.  But  the  Jainistic  theory  is  simply  a  reduc- 
tio  ad  absurdum  of  the  Hindu  theory  of  transmigration. 

On  the  practical  side,  Jainism  is  characterized  on  the 
one  hand  by  an  extreme  asceticism,  and  on  the  other 
by  an  extreme  devotion  to  the  doctrine  of  ahinsa  or  non- 
injury  of  living  beings.  This  latter  doctrine,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  common  to  all  higher  formes  of  Hinduism,  includ- 

157 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

ing  Buddhism.  But  perhaps  no  other  sect  has  carried 
it  as  far  as  Jainism.  The  saving  grace  of  Moderation, 
the  Middle  Way  to  which  Buddhism  is  devoted,  is  lack- 
ing in  Jainism.  No  Jain  monk  ( for  there  is  an  order  of 
monks  in  Jainism,  too)  is  allowed  to  travel  about  during 
the  rainy  season,  though  at  all  other  seasons  he  is,  on  the 
contrary,  forbidden  to  stay  in  any  one  place  for  more 
than  a  very  short  time.  The  reason  for  this  is  that  in 
the  rainy  season,  in  India,  it  is  impossible  to  walk  abroad 
at  all  without  involuntarily  crushing  many  of  the  tiny 
insects  which  swarm  underfoot  in  the  soggy  earth.11 
Similarly,  good  Jains  are  supposed  to  use,  and  many  of 
them  still  do  use,  strainers  in  drinking  water,  lest  inad- 
vertently they  should  swallow  imperceptibly  small  insects 
in  the  draft.  They  devote  themselves  to  building  hos- 
pitals for  animals,  in  which  there  are  wards  for  insects, 
fleas,  lice,  and  so  on.  In  short,  they  almost  make  a  laud- 
able virtue  into  a  ridiculous  absurdity. 

Another  sign  of  the  marked  lack  of  moderation  among 
the  Jains  is  their  extreme  asceticism.  This,  of  course, 
they  have  in  common  with  many  Hindu  sects,  some  of 
which  fully  equal  them  in  it;  but,  as  aforesaid,  they 
differ  markedly  from  the  Buddhists  on  this  point.  It  is 
a  meritorious  act  to  the  Jains  to  perform  or  submit  to 
almost  any  kind  of  self-torture.  Some  of  them  regard 
suicide  by  slow  starvation  as  the  crowning  merit  of  all, 
and  as  insuring  Nirvana.  (Buddhism  definitely  forbids 
suicide  in  any  form. )  One  of  the  two  Jain  sects,  which 
claims,  apparently  with  some  show  of  justice,  to  be  the 
more  original  in  its  doctrines  and  habits,  requires  that 
its  monks  shall  go  absolutely  naked.  This  branch, 
called  the  Digambaras  or  "  Sky-clothed,"  is  to  be  sure  the 
less  numerous  of  the  two ;  most  present-day  Jains  belong 

11  To  be  sure,  this  particular  manifestation  of  ahinsa  is  shared 
by  many  other  Indian  orders ;  and  Buddhist  monks  are  not  wont  to 
travel  during  the  rains. 

158 


BUDDHISM 

to  the  other  sect,  the  Qvetambaras,  or  "  White-clothed." 
Women  are  admitted  to  the  order  of  the  Qvetambaras, 
whereas  for  obvious  reasons  they  are  excluded  from  the 
Digambara  order,  and  hence  denied  the  possibility  of  lead- 
ing the  religious  life.  Apparently  the  only  hope  for  a 
woman  of  the  Digambara  sect  to  attain  Nirvana  is  to 
acquire  enough  merit  to  be  reborn  as  a  man.  Even  among 
the  less  extreme  Qvetambara  Jains,  violent  asceticism 
is  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  certain  ways  of  acquiring 
merit. 

Jainism,  unlike  Buddhism,  has  never  been  carried  out- 
side the  bounds  of  India.  But  it  has  scored  at  least  this 
triumph  over  Buddhism,  that  whereas  the  latter  is  now 
practically  extinct  in  India  proper,  Jainism  still  flourishes 
there.  There  are  between  one  and  two  million  Jains  in 
India,  largely  in  the  west  and  southwest.  They  are,  in 
spite  of  their  extreme  tenets,  on  the  whole,  a  highly  re- 
spectable and  prosperous  class,  consisting  largely  of  mer- 
chants, and  to  a  great  extent  making  very  ordinary  and 
prosaic  works  of  charity  take  the  place  of  the  originally 
much  more  ascetic  performances  required  by  the  prin- 
ciples of  their  religion.  These  principles  tend  nowadays 
to  show  themselves  for  the  most  part  only  in  what  seem 
to  us  somewhat  whimsical  and  fantastic  occasional  appli- 
cations of  charity,  as  in  their  insect-hospitals  and  the  like. 

The  sacred  texts  of  Jainism  are  written  in  a  popular 
or  Prakritic  dialect,  which  has  become  for  Jainism  what 
Pali  is  for  Buddhism.  In  eschewing  the  cultivated  San- 
skrit the  original  Jains  signalized  their  opposition  to  Brah- 
manism  and  their  appeal  to  all  classes  of  the  population 
without  regard  to  caste,  just  as  the  Buddhists  did.  In 
later  times,  however,  again  like  the  Buddhists  (of  the 
northern  school),  growth  of  respectability  among  the 
Jains  brought  with  it  to  some  extent  conformity  in  the 
matter  of  language  as  in  other  respects ;  and  in  mediaeval 
times  Sanskrit  was  to  a  large  extent  used  by  Jain  writers, 

159 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

although,  to  be  sure,  it  was  more  in  secular  than  in  re- 
ligious works  that  it  was  used.  The  Jains  of  mediaeval 
India  concerned  themselves  very  extensively  with  the 
literature  of  fables  and  stories;  we  owe  to  them  a  large 
number  of  collections  of  this  type  of  literature,  which 
average  a  very  high  degree  of  artistic  excellence. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

BUDDHISM  : 

H.  C.  WARREN  :  Buddhism  in  Translations.  Cambridge,  Mass.,  1896. 
An  admirable  work,  giving  a  systematic  view  of  Buddhism  by 
carefully  chosen  and  well-arranged  selections  of  translations 
from  the  original  sources,  with  sufficient  introductory  and  ex- 
planatory materials  to  enable  the  beginner  to  follow  intelligently. 

HERMANN  OLDENBERG  :  Buddha.  Translation  of  the  ist  German  edi- 
tion, by  Hoey,  London,  1882. 

T.  W.  RHYS  DAVIDS  :  Buddhism.    London,  1894. 

T.  W.  RHYS  DAVIDS  :   Buddhism.  New  York,  1896. 

H.  KERN:  Manual  of  Indian  Buddhism.  Strassburg,  1896.  This 
book  is  more  useful  for  the  scholar  and  advanced  student  than 
for  the  beginner. 

MAHAYANA  OR  NORTHERN  BUDDHISM  : 

D.  T.  SUZUKI  :  Outlines  of  Mahayana  Buddhism.    London,  1907. 

BUDDHISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY: 
(See  notes  8  and  9  above.) 

MRS   S   STEVENSON  :   The  Heart  of  Mnism.    London,  1915. 
H    TACOBI-  Gaina  Sutras.     Oxford,  1884,  1895.     [Sacred  Books  of 
'    the  East,  vols.  xxii  and  xlv.]    Translation  of  texts,  with  valuable 
general  introduction. 


160 


CHAPTER  VII 

BRAHMANISM  AND  HINDUISM. 
BY  FRANKLIN  EDGERTON 

I.    BRAHMANISM 

We  have  seen  how  the  hieratic  cult  of  the  Veda  de- 
veloped into  a  formalistic,  cut-and-dried  system  of  cere- 
monies, lacking  in  both  truly  intellectual  and  truly  devo- 
tional elements,  and  centered  entirely  in  the  hands  of  a 
class  of  priests.  In  so  far  as  the  ceremonies  of  this 
priestly  cult  concerned  only  the  original  hieratic  ritual 
of  the  three  sacred  fires,  centering  in  the  soma-sacrifices, 
its  doom  was  sealed.  It  was  too  specialized,  too  remote 
from  the  great  mass  of  the  people,  to  survive  after  it  had 
been  deprived  of  all  intellectual  and  devotional  back- 
ground. The  soma-offerings  and  the  other  performances 
of  the  three-fire  cult  fell  into  disuse  at  an  early  date. 
For  many  centuries  now  they  have  played  no  real  part 
in  the  religious  life  of  India.  Nominally  they  are  still  in 
effect.  The  Vedic  texts  which  prescribe  them  are  still 
extant  and  are  still  supposedly  sacred  and  binding.  From 
time  to  time  isolated  enthusiasts  have  continued  to  per- 
form some  of  them.  In  mediaeval  India  an  attempt  was 
even  made  to  provide  them  with  a  philosophic  basis,  in 
the  form  of  the  Mimansa  system  of  philosophy.  But  it 
has  had  little  practical  effect. 

Perhaps  the  priestly  custodians  of  this  cult  saw  the 
writing  on  the  wall,  and  cast  about  for  some  means  of 
safety  from  the  impending  doom.  At  any  rate,  with  or 
without  such  intention,  there  was  grafted  on  to  the  old 
stock  a  thriving  branch  from  the  living  religion  of  the 
people,  which  infused  a  new  life  into  the  whole,  and  which 
in  time  virtually  became  the  whole — as  the  old,  strictly 
11  161 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

sacerdotal  part  of  the  cult  gradually  perished.  As  we 
have  seen,  the  popular  religion  of  Vedic  times  contained 
(along  with  many  less  innocent  features)  a  large  num- 
ber of  regular  ceremonies  pertaining  to  definite  points  in 
the  life  of  every  normal  man,  such  as  birth-rites,  rites 
performed  at  reaching  puberty,  marriage  and  funeral  rites, 
and  others.  All  Aryans  were  expected  to  perform  these, 
as  a  matter  of  course.  The  hieratic  cult  did  not  deal 
with  them,  not  because  it  opposed  them  at  all,  but  because 
they  were  simply  none  of  its  business.  But  in  later  times 
the  priests  perhaps  saw  how  much  they  could  gain  by 
making  these  popular  rites  their  business.  At  any  rate, 
whether  with  this  conscious  purpose  or  not,  they  adopted 
them  and  made  them  a  regular  part  of  their  system,  al- 
though they  kept  them  carefully  distinct  from  the  other, 
strictly  hieratic  rites.  And  once  undertaken,  the  work 
of  adoption  was  carried  out  with  the  utmost  thorough- 
ness. The  entire  stock  of  priestly  learning  was  put  at 
the  disposal  of  these  popular  ceremonies.  They  are  de- 
scribed in  the  Grihya  Sutras  or  books  of  the  "  domestic  " 
rites  (as  distinguished  from  the  (Jrauta  Sutras,  the  books 
of  the  hieratic  or  "  revelational"  rites,  gruti).  These 
Grihya  Sutras  are  compilations  made  in  the  latest  Vedic 
age.  But  they  employ  the  sacred  mantras  or  texts  of  the 
early  Vedic  literature  in  conducting  these  originally  un- 
hieratic,  domestic  rites. 

The  classical  law-books  (dharma-qastras),  which  are 
the  real  authorities  of  institutional  Brahmanism,  make  a 
list  of  twelve  of  these  personal  ceremonies,  which  they 
call  samskaras,  and  which  are  supposed  to  be  particu- 
larly pious  and  efficacious.  They  begin  with  the  rite  of 
impregnation  and  end  with  marriage.  Among  the  more 
important  of  the  intermediate  ceremonies  are  those  that 
pertain  to  birth  and  name-giving,  and  to  the  upanayana 
or  "  initiation."  This  last  is  supposed  to  be  performed 
for  every  boy  of  the  three  upper  castes,  that  is  every 

162 


BRAHMANISM  AND  HINDUISM 

Aryan  boy,1  about  the  age  of  puberty.  It  consists  in  the 
boy's  formal  induction  into  the  life  of  a  student  of  the 
Veda,  which  is  the  first  of  the  four  aqramas  or  regular 
stages  in  the  life  of  an  Aryan.  During  the  period  of  stu- 
dentship, whose  duration  was  indefinite,  the  student 
(called  a  brahmacarin)  lived  with  his  guru  or  teacher 
and  acted  as  a  sort  of  body-servant  to  him.  At  the  end 
thereof  he  returned  to  his  father's  house,  and  shortly 
after  was  expected  to  marry  and  set  up  a  home  of  his 
own.  By  so  doing  he  entered  the  second  agrama  or  stage 
of  life,  that  of  the  householder  (grihastha).  To  beget  a 
son  was  a  religious  duty  to  the  ancestors  of  the  family, 
that  the  rites  to  the  Manes  might  be  performed.2 

Marriage  was  the  last  of  the  twelve  samskaras.  Entry 
into  the  two  last  aqramas  or  stages  of  life  was  not  marked 
by  any  special  ceremony.  These  last  two  stages  were 
those  of  the  forest-dwelling  ascetic  (vanaprastha)  and 
the  homeless  wandering  mendicant  (parivrajaka,  sam- 
nyasin).  And  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  were  probably 
always  more  or  less  theoretical  and  certainly  optional. 
But  there  were  certain  other  ceremonies,  not  called  sam- 
skaras, which  were  nevertheless  quite  as  important  as 
any  of  the  samskaras;  especially  the  funeral  rites,  and 
the  oblations  to  deceased  ancestors,  as  well  as  a  large 
number  of  minor  and  recurrent  rites  and  observances. 

These  domestic  observances  still  form  the  center  of 
Brahmanism  as  a  formal  religion.  The  extent  to  which 
they  are  observed  differs  in  different  castes,  and  also 
to  a  large  extent  in  different  localities  and  families.  All 
Brahmans  in  good  standing  observe  at  least  the  more  im- 
portant of  the  samskaras,  as  well  as  the  funeral  rites  and 
the  oblations  to  ancestors,  and  also  some  simple  daily 

1  Compare  page  166.  Women  were  not  allowed  to  study  the 
Veda,  and  therefore  this  rite  was  not  performed  for  them. 

*  In  case  no  son  was  born  to  a  man,  he  might  adopt  or  purchase 
one;  or  his  daughter's  son,  or  some  collateral  male  relative,  might 
under  certain  conditions  be  regarded  as  belonging  to  him. 

163 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

rites.  Other  castes  are  less  strict  in  these  observances. 
And,  generally  speaking,  the  lower  a  caste  is,  the  less  its 
members  attend  to  them.  No  samskara  or  other  impor- 
tant rite  can  be  performed  without  the  aid  of  at  least 
one  Brahman  as  officiating  priest ;  at  some  of  them  many 
Brahmans  are  or  may  be  employed.  Some  of  the  lower 
castes  are,  however,  regarded  as  too  degraded  to  be 
allowed  to  have  any  such  rites  performed  for  them.  No 
self-respecting  Brahman  would  perform  any  rite  for  an 
outcaste  or  a  man  of  a  very  low  caste.  The  law-books 
themselves  exclude  all  ^udras  from  the  study  of  the  Veda, 
and  therefore  from  the  upanayana  or  "  initiation,"  which 
marks  the  beginning  of  the  studentship. 

From  these  remarks  it  will  be  already  apparent  that  \ 
the  institution  of  caste  is  a  matter  of  prime  importance 
in  Brahmanism.  In  fact,  it  has  been  said  that  to  many 
Hindus  their  caste  is  their  religion.  Some  of  them 
hardly  have  any  other.  Brahmanism  is  a  form  of  society, 
a  social  institution  or  system  of  institutions,  quite  as 
much  as  a  religion.  As  I  pointed  out,  the  Hindus  are 
too  apt  to  think  of  the  whole  duty  of  man  as  consisting 
in  the  correct  observance  of  formal  rules  of  conduct; 
and  for  a  Hindu  this  always  means  the  rules  in  force  in 
the  caste  to  which  he  happens  to  belong.  Even  the  ob- 
servance of  the  brahmanical  domestic  rites  is  less  a  per- 
sonal than  a  caste  matter.  One  observes  more  or  less 
of  them,  not  in  accordance  with  his  personal  convictions 
or  pious  desires,  but  in  accordance  with  the  custom  of 
his  caste  or  sub-caste.  To  violate  caste  custom  is  to  run 
the  risk  of  being  excommunicated,  that  is,  expelled  from 
the  caste;  and  this  is  the  most  terrible  fate  that  can 
befall  a  Hindu,  since  it  practically  cuts  him  off  from  all 
intercourse  with  men,  unless  Europeans  will  associate 
with  him.  Now  one  may  believe  practically  anything  he 
pleases  without  losing  caste  standing.  One  may  believe 
in  any  god,  or  disbelieve  in  all.  But  one  must  live  cor- 

164 


BRAHMANISM  AND  HINDUISM 

rectly,  eat  and  drink  correctly,  go  through  a  certain  mini- 
mum of  formal  ritual  observances  (mostly  implying  little 
or  no  actual  belief),  and,  above  all,  marry  correctly. 
Anyone  who  marries  outside  his  own  caste  is  instantly 
expelled.  But  one  may  lose  his  caste-purity  even  by  quite 
involuntary  contamination  from  lower  castes.  If  the 
shadow  of  a  low-caste  man  falls  on  a  Brahman,  the 
Brahman  is  polluted  and  must  go  through  a  ceremonial 
of  expiation.  Some  castes  are  so  low  that  their  mere 
presence  within  a  certain  distance  of  those  of  higher 
caste  is  defiling.  Naturally,  a  high-caste  man  must  of 
necessity  give  a  great  deal  of  thought  and  care  to  the 
observance  of  the  enormous  mass  of  these  caste  regula- 
tions, some  of  which  are  by  no  means  simple.  It  is  not 
strange  that  some  such  men  hardly  find  time  to  think 
of  any  other  sort  of  religion. 

We  cannot  now  concern  ourselves  with  the  origin  of 
caste  as  a  social  institution.  It  is  rather  with  its  religious 
aspects,  as  a  part  o-f  the  brahmanical  theory,  that  we 
have  to  deal.  That  theory  holds  that  caste  differences 
are  biological,  not  social.  Men  can  no  more  change  their 
caste  than  they  can  their  species,  in  this  life.  A  Qudra 
may  by  virtuous  deeds  become  a  Brahman  in  his  next 
existence,  by  the  operation  of  "  karma ;"  3  so  may  a  sheep 
or  an  ape  become  a  man,  in  exactly  the  same  way.  Even 
the  Rig-veda,  in  a  very  late  stanza,4  says  that  the  four 
main  castes  were  created  from  different  parts  of  the 
body  of  the  First  Being;  Brahmans  from  his  head,  ra- 
janyas  or  kshatriyas  from  his  arms,  vaiqyas  from  his 
thighs,  and  gudras  from  his  feet.  This  theory  remained 
standard  throughout  all  the  later  brahmanical  literature. 
It  indicates  the  permanence  of  caste  divisions,  as  well 
as  the  relations  of  the  four  supposedly  original  castes. 

1  See  page  142  ff. 

4  Rig-veda,  10.90.12.  This  is  the  only  clear  reference  to  caste  in 
the  Rig-veda.  In  all  other  Vedic  works  it  is  well  known. 

165 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

First  of  all  come  the  Brahmans,  the  priests.  Next  come 
the  kshatriyas  or  raj  any  as,  theoretically  warriors,  or  as 
we  should  say  nobles ;  kings  belong  to  this  caste.  Thirdly 
come  the  vaigyas,  originally  all  of  the  free  Aryan  popu- 
lation not  included  in  the  first  two  castes,  agriculturists, 
merchants,  and  free  artisans.  Last  come  the  qudras, 
originally  identical  with  the  dark-skinned  aborigines 
whom  the  Aryans  subdued  and  enslaved,  and  so  theo- 
retically serfs.  The  first  three  castes,  who  alone  are  sup- 
posed to  be  of  Aryan  descent,  are  called  "  twice-born," 
because  only  they,  and  not  the  gudras,  can  go  through  the 
ceremony  of  upanayana  or  brahmanical  initiation,  which 
is  regarded  as  constituting  a  spiritual  "  second  birth." 

The  Brahmans  did  not  secure  their  position  at  the 
head  of  society  without  opposition.  You  will  remember 
that  the  Buddhist  texts  show  signs  of  a  definite  rejection 
of  their  claims  on  the  part  of  the  kshatriyas,  the  nobles. 
The  Brahmanical  books  themselves  throw  out  dark  hints 
which  suggest  that  even  bloody  conflicts  may  have  signal- 
ized the  struggle  between  the  spiritual  and  the  lay  nobility. 
But  probably  religious  rather  than  worldly  weapons  were 
the  principal  deciding  factors.  The  steps  of  the  process 
are  not  discernible.  This  much  is  clear,  that  already  in 
the  Brahmanas,5  that  is  in  the  chronological  period  im- 
mediately following  that  of  the  early  Vedic  hymns,  the 
caste  system  was  well  developed,  and  the  claims  of  the 
priestly  caste  had  already  attained  the  extravagance  of 
later  times.  The  priests  are  already  called  "  gods  on 
earth,"  an  epithet  which  is  given  to  them  throughout  all 
the  later  Sanskrit  literature.  Indeed,  this  startlingly  bold 
term,  and  the  position  of  the  Brahman  caste  generally, 
can  best  be  made  to  appear  reasonable  and  logical  in  con- 
nection with  the  theory  of  the  ritualistic  religion  of  the 
Brahmanas.  As  we  have  seen6  this  ritualistic  religion^ 

'See  page  115. 
See  page  126. 

1 66 


BRAHMANISM  AND  HINDUISM 

regards  the  sacrifice  as  the  all  in  all.  The  sacrifice  con- 
trols the  gods,  and  usurps  their  functions;  we  sometimes 
hear  even  that  it  brought  the  gods  into  existence  or  raised 
them  to  divine  rank.  But  the  sacrifice,  in  turn,  is  abso- 
lutely in  the  control  of  the  Brahmans.  From  this  point 
of  view,  then,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  Brahmans  can 
claim  to  be  fully  equal  in  rank  to  the  old  naturalistic  gods. 

It  is  convenient  to  apply  the  term  Brahmanism  to  this 
social-religious  system,  the  very  heart  of  which  is  the 
hierarchy  of  castes,  with  the  Brahmans  at  the  head. 
Other  castes  obtain  a  place  in  the  system  by  giving  full 
recognition  to  the  Brahmanical  supremacy,  and  by  employ- 
ing the  Brahmans  to  perform  for  them  the  domestic 
rites  and  observances  which  constitute  practically  the 
whole  religious  content  of  Brahmanism,  outside  of  the 
strict  social  laws  of  caste  per  se. 

But  as  we  have  hinted,  it  is  not  all  castes  that  are" 
fortunate  enough  to  be  allowed  even  this  qualified  posi- 
tion in  Brahmanism.  Instead  of  the  four  theoretically 
original  castes,  Hindu  society  is  now  split  up  into  very 
numerous  castes  and  subcastes.7  And  many  of  them  are 
so  low  that  Brahmans  will  not  perform  any  rite  for  them. 
This  automatically  shuts  them  out  from  the  fold  of 
Brahmanism. 

What  remains  then  for  these  unfortunates  by  way  of 
religion?  Of  course  they  may  embrace  a  heterodox,  non- 
Brahmanical  sect,  like  Buddhism,  or  (since  that  is  now 
extinct  in  India  proper)  Jainism.  Since  the  invasion  of 
the  Turks,  Mohammedanism,  too,  offers  them  a  refuge; 
and  since  very  modern  times,  Christian  missionaries  have 
worked  among  them.  Most  of  the  converts  to  Christian- 
ity, as  a  matter  of  fact,  belong  to  these  "  despised  and 
rejected  "  classes. 

TSir  A.  Baines,  in  his  book  on  Ethnology  and  Caste,  gives  a 
tabular  list  of  over  four  hundred,  with  a  list  of  their  numbers,  based 
on  census  returns. 

167 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

Nevertheless,  to  become  a  Christian  or  a  Mohamme- 
dan, or  even  a  Jain,  means  separation  from  caste,  with 
all  the  spiritual  misery  which  that  momentous  step  is  apt 
to  occasion  in  India.  It  is  possible  to  embrace  a  more 
democratic,  as  well  as  more  living,  form  of  religion  than 
Brahmanism,  with  its  dead  formalities  and  lack  of  real 
devotion;  and  that,  too,  without  definitely  breaking  with 
the  Brahmanical  system.  There  are  religious  sects  ins 
India  which  are  open  to  all  castes  and  to  those  of  no  caste ; 
which,  moreover,  understand  religion  as  a  very  different 
matter  from  a  mere  set  of  formal  observances ;  and  which 
are  yet  tolerated  by  Brahmanism.  In  fact,  many  Brah- 
mans,  perhaps  even  most  Brahmans,  belong  to  one  or 
another  of  these  sects,  in  sympathy  at  least,  if  not  in 
open  and  formal  allegiance.  And  yet  they  remain  mem- 
bers of  the  Brahman  caste,  in  good  and  regular  standing. 

II.    HINDUISM 

These  sects  are  called  by  the  collective  name  of  Hin- 
duism; and  nearly  all  of  them  are  devoted  primarily  to 
the  worship  of  one  of  the  two  great  gods  Vishnu 
Qiva,  or  of  gods  identified  with  one  of  them,  or  of 
their  feminine  counterparts,  or  of  goddesses  identified 
therewith. 

The  name  Hinduism  properly  applies  to  these  sec- 
tarian religions  as  a  group,  because  nearly  all  Hindus 
belong  to  one  or  another  of  them.  By  Hindus  in  this 
sense  I  mean  all  natives  of  India  who  are  neither  Moham- 
medans nor  Christians,  nor  yet  adherents  of  some  sect 
(such  as  Jainism)  which  is  regarded  as  unorthodox  and 
so  outside  the  pale  of  Hinduism  in  the  strict  sense.  The 
tests  of  orthodoxy  are  not  always  simple  or  easily  defined. 
As  we  saw  in  the  case  of  Buddhism,  they  tend  to  be  more 
formal  than  intellectual.8  They  are  apt  to  include  a  vague 
homage  to  the  Veda  as  a  supposedly  holy  literature,  and 

8Cf.  page  135  ff. 

1 68 


BRAHMANISM  AND  HINDUISM 

a  practical  acceptance  of  the  caste  system,  with  the  su- 
premacy of  the  Brahmans,  as  far  as  every-day  life  is 
concerned.  The  first  requirement  is  the  more  easily  com- 
plied with  since  few  people,  even  among  the  Brahmans 
themselves,  have  much  idea  of  what  is  really  contained 
in  the  Veda,  The  second  may  be  made  of  slight  im- 
portance by  the  device  o-f  centering  the  religion  around 
an  ascetic  or  monastic  order.  For  ascetics  are  regarded, 
even  by  the  most  orthodox  of  Brahmans,  as  more  or  less 
outside  of  caste,  or  perhaps  as  forming  a  sort  of  distinct 
caste  or  castes  of  their  own.  Thus  the  Lingayats,  a  large 
sect  of  Qvaite  sectarians  in  South  India,  regard  them- 
selves as  a  separate  and  distinct  caste.  And  most  ascetic 
orders,  of  whatever  sect,  are  pretty  free  in  admitting  men 
of  any  caste.  This  does  not  prevent  those  sectaries  who 
keep  to  the  lay  or  worldly  life  from  being  rigid  adherents 
of  caste. 

The  Hindu  sects  result  from  very  different  tendencies, 
more  or  less  intermingled,  and  really  united  only  by  a 
common  inclination  for  something  in  the  way  of  religion 
which  Brahmanism  could  not  furnish.  At  least  three 
such  streams  of  influence  seem  to  be  discernible  from 
the  start.  One  comes  from  above,  so  to  speak.  It  is 
the  spiritual  heir  of  the  Upanishads.  It  is  speculative  and 
intellectual,  or  mystical,  or  both  by  turns.  The  second, 
on  the  other  hand,  comes  from  below.  It  is  popular  and 
emotional.  It  seeks  a  religious  haven  for  the  humble 
and  oppressed,  and  for  all  those  who  stand  without  the 
pale  O'f  Brahmanism  from  necessity,  as  contrasted  with 
the  intellectual  leaders,  who  were  inclined  to  neglect 
Brahmanism  from  choice. 

For  their  numerical  strength,  the  Hindu  sects  are 
of  course  much  more  indebted  to  the  second  of  these  two 
influences  than  to  the  first;  although  it  has  frequently 
happened  that  at  least  the  original  leaders  of  sects  have 
been  men  of  high  social  position,  and  of  rather  reflective 

169 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

than  emotional  types  of  mind.  But  there  is  still  a  third 
source  of  Hindu  sects,  somewhat  related  to  the  second, 
which  may  have  been,  all  in  all,  more  important  than 
either  of  the  other  two.  Many  of  the  deities  which  are 
worshiped  in  modern  India,  though  they  are  usually  re- 
garded as  incarnations  or  forms  of  Hindu  deities,  are  in 
fact  originally  the  gods  of  old  non-Aryan  tribes,  or,  at 
any  rate,  gods  who  at  first  had  no  place  in  the  Hindu 
pantheon,  thinly  veiled  by  their  adopted  Hindu  guise. 
There  is  reason  to  believe  that  this  process  of  adoption 
has  very  ancient  precedents. 

All  three  of  these  elements  seem  to  be  discernible 
with  especial  clearness  in  the  history  of  the  sects  of  Qiva. 
This  god  is  identical  with  the  Vedic  Rudra,  who  in  the 
Rig-veda  is  a  malevolent,  destructive  deity,  a  god  of 
pestilences  and  horrors,  whose  wrath  is  deprecated,  and 
in  whom  there  are  few  signs  of  the  graciousness  which 
most  of  the  Vedic  gods  are  capable  of  showing.  In 
later  times  the  name  (Jiva  came  to  be  given  to  him  eu- 
phemistically ;  it  is  an  epithet  meaning  "kindly,"  and  its 
application  to  Rudra  means  not  that  he  was  kindly,  but 
that  his  worshipers  wished  he  would  be.  The  god  has 
a  great  many  other  names — a  thousand  are  enumerated 
later — and  many  of  them  are  found  already  in  the  later 
Vedic  Samhitas,  where  Rudra  in  his  various  "  forms  " 
already  has  a  noticeably  greater  importance  than  in  the 
Rig-veda.  In  the  Yajur-veda  he  is  a  god  of  mountains 
and  forests,  of  wayfarers,  travelers,  and  merchants,  of 
soldiers  and  (therefore)  of  brigands  and  thieves;  also  of 
ascetics  who  dwell  in  forest  solitudes  or  wander  about 
without  homes ;  and  in  general  of  people  who  are  not  in 
good  society — of  abandoned,  desperate  characters,  the 
offscourings  of  the  lands.  Already  we  see  him  assuming 
the  forms  of  the  later  £iva,  whose  detractors  called  him 
the  god  of  outcasts  and  people  of  no  account.  There  is 
little  doubt  that  in  the  figure  of  this  wild,  morose  deity 

170 


BRAHMANISM  AND  HINDUISM 

there  are  blended  some  old  barbarous  gods  of  the  pre- 
Aryan  inhabitants  of  India.  It  may  even  be  that  Rudra 
himself,  the  Vedic  prototype  of  Qiva,  was  a  barbarian 
god  who  thus  early  intruded  into  the  very  sanctuary  of  the 
hieratic  religion.  At  any  rate,  Qiva  remains,  throughout 
all  his  history,  most  of  all  a  stern,  rather  harsh  god. 
To  be  sure,  many  of  his  devotees  see  the  other  side  in 
him.  To  some  of  them  he  appears  as  kindly  and  loving. 
Even  his  kindness,  however,  is  most  apt  to  be  won  by 
stern  acts  of  asceticism  and  even  self-torture.  He  is  the 
great  favorite  of  ascetics;  in  fact,  he  is  himself  their 
heavenly  prototype.  Ashes  are  one  of  his  emblems;  his 
devotees  smear  their  bodies  with  them.  Other  signs  are 
the  human  skull  and  the  trident,  and  the  berries  called 
rudraksha  ("  Rudra's  Eye"),  which  are  strung  together 
in  rosaries  and  worn  by  his  worshipers. 

Yet  Qiva  the  stern  Destroyer,  who  to  his  devotees  is 
of  course  All-in-all,  is  also  in  another  aspect  particularly 
a  creator,  a  god  of  generation.  As  such  his  emblem  is  the 
phallus,  the  linga  as  it  is  called.  These  lingas  or  phallic 
images  are  worn  to  this  day  by  many  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  Qvaites.  This  side  of  Qiva  is  one  of  the  clearest 
indications  of  his  barbaric,  non-Aryan  connections.  For 
phallic  worship  never  found  a  place  in  any  form  of  Brah- 
manism;  and  on  the  other  hand  there  are  one  or  two 
obscure  references  in  the  Veda  which  are  believed  to  indi- 
cate that  the  dark-skinned  aborigines  whom  the  Vedic 
Aryans  conquered  did  devote  themselves  to  such  forms 
of  religion.  However  this  may  be,  as  it  appears  in  (Jiva- 
ism  to-day  it  is  all  very  much  softened  down.  The  linga 
is  scarcely  more  than  a  conventional  symbol  of  Qiva; 
most  people  hardly  ever  think  of  its  original  significance. 
As  a  rule,  it  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  in  any  way  indecent 
or  repellent,  even  to  a  European  mind.  Nor  are  there 
any  obscene  or  indecent  rites  connected  with  most  sects 
of  Civaites. 

171 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

The  same  cannot  be  said  for  Qiva's  consort  and  femi- 
nine counterpart,  Parvati.  She  has  if  possible  even  more 
names  than  her  husband;  and  she  is  certainly  quite  as 
composite  as  he.  But  even  more  in  her  case  than  in  his 
there  are  apt  to  come  to  the  surface  the  two  phases  of 
character  which  are  least  sympathetic  to  westerners,  the 
terrible,  and  the  obscene.  One  of  her  stock  names,  Uma, 
is  thought  by  some  to  be  a  Dravidian  name.9  And  cer- 
tainly it  is  with  her,  if  with  any  Hindu  goddess,  that 
those  ferocious  goddesses  are  identified,  who  even  yet 
exact  bloody  sacrifices  from  the  imperfectly  Hinduized 
Dravidian  villagers  of  Southern  India.  All  over  India 
she  is  known  as  Devi — that  is,  The  Goddess,  par  excel- 
lence. All  over  India,  too,  she  is  known  as  the  notorious 
and  bloodthirsty  Kali  or  Durga,  in  whose  honor  the  for- 
mer brigand  sect  of  the  Thugs  used  to  slaughter  their 
victims.  As  the  Qakti  or  "  Energy  "  of  her  consort  Qiva, 
she  is  moreover  a  personification  of  the  female  power  of 
generation.  In  this  form  she  is  the  chief  deity  of  the 
sects  called  Qaktas  or  Tantrists,  who  regard  her  as  su- 
perior even  to  £iva,  and  worship  her  symbol — sometimes 
a  living  symbol — in  ways  which  may  perhaps  best  be  left 
to  the  imagination.  It  should  be  said,  however,  that  the 
extreme  branch  of  this  sect  does  not  dare  show  its  head 
openly.  No  Hindu  dares  to  admit  that  he  belongs  to  it. 
It  is,  in  fact,  merely  a  form  of  debauchery,  whose  secret 
adherents  probably  for  the  most  part  are  either  degener- 
ates or  arrant  hypocrites.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  few  of 
them  honestly  conceive  that  they  are  conducting  a  form 
of  religion.  It  would,  however,  be  most  unfair  to  de- 
scribe all  Qaktas  thus.  Their  less  extreme  division  un- 
doubtedly includes  many  thoroughly  sincere  and  not  im- 
pure persons. 

More  sympathetic  to  our  western  minds  is  the  cult 

•  At  present,  to  be  sure,  Uma  is  one  of  the  kindly,  not  one  of  the 
terrible,  forms  of  Parvati. 

172 


BRAHMANISM  AND  HINDUISM 

of  Vishnu,  the  other  great  god  of  Hinduism.  He,  too, 
was  originally  a  Vedic  deity,  this  time  under  the  same 
name.  He  was  apparently  a  sun-god  in  origin ;  even  the 
later  Vishnu  is  symbolized  by  the  disk  (originally  of  the 
sun),  and  rides  upon  the  heavenly  eagle,  who  is  clearly 
the  sun-bird.  But  the  Vedic  Vishnu  is  a  very  minor 
and  colorless  figure.  It  is  still  one  of  the  great  puzzles 
of  Indian  scholarship,  how  he  happened  to  be  chosen  for 
such  an  exalted  destiny.  About  all  we  hear  of  him  in  the 
Rig-veda  is  that  he  traverses  the  universe  in  three  enor- 
mous strides  (a  figurative  reference  to  the  sun's  progress 
across  the  sky),  and  that  the  last  of  these  strides  lands 
him  in  the  "  highest  place  of  Vishnu,"  the  zenith,  a  kind 
of  solar  paradise,  where  the  departed  souls  of  the  blessed 
are  sometimes  thought  of  as  enjoying  bliss  with  him.  It 
has  been  conjectured  that  this  feature  may  be  connected 
with  his  later  position  as  supreme  god. 

But,  although  he  increases  in  importance  in  the 
times  of  the  Brahmanas  and  the  later  Vedic  texts,  he 
seems  not  to  have  become  a  popular  deity  of  the  first 
rank  until  post- Vedic  times.  In  fact,  it  appears  that  he 
gained  this  rank  rather  indirectly  than  directly.  Certainly 
his  hold  on  the  popular  consciousness  seems  to  date  from 
the  time  when  he  absorbed  the  cult  of  Krishna. 

At  least  as  early  as  the  second  century  B.C.  we  have 
definite  proof  that  there  was  in  existence  a  popular  re- 
ligious cult  centering  about  a  sort  of  demi-god  named 
Vasudeva  or  Krishna.  Most  scholars  hold  that  this  cult 
itself  was  composite;  that  there  were  to  start  with  at 
least  two,  perhaps  three,  Krishnas.  One  of  them  at  least 
was  apparently  a  deified  national  hero  of  a  local  tribe. 
This  whole  matter  is  so  complicated  and  obscure  that  it 
is  quite  impossible  to  discuss  it  now.  In  its  final  form, 
as  it  appears  a  few  centuries  after  Christ,  Krishnaism 
appears  as  a  substantially  monotheistic  and  highly  devo- 
tional adoration  of  Vasudeva-Krishna  who  is  half 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

shepherd  and  half  warrior,  but  always  truly  man  as  well 
as  truly  God.  In  the  Athanasian  character  of  this  wor- 
ship lies  its  great  strength.  In  the  famous  Bhagavad 
Gita  or  Song  of  the  Blessed  One,  an  ancient  Krishnaite 
tract  imbedded  in  the  great  Hindu  epic,  the  Mahabharata, 
we  have  the  doctrine  clearly  set  forth :  "  In  order  to  save 
the  righteous,  to  destroy  the  wicked,  and  to  set  religion 
on  a  firm  footing,  I  come  into  being  from  age  to  age."10 
God  condescends  to  become  man  Himself,  for  the  benefit 
of  mankind.  No  Christian  audience  needs  to  be  told  how 
such  a  gospel  can  conquer  the  hearts  of  men. 

Now  in  some  way  or  other,  we  cannot  say  exactly 
how  or  why,  this  Krishna  or  Vasudeva  became  identified 
with  Vishnu.  As  the  later  theorists  put  it,  the  Supreme 
God,  who  is  Vishnu,  in  his  great  love  fo-r  man,  made  him- 
self man  in  the  form  of  Krishna.  But,  as  the  stanza  I 
just  quoted  indicates,  this  was  not  the  only  time  when 
this  loving  deity  became  incarnate  for  a  benevolent  pur- 
pose. So  presently  we  have  the  theory  of  the  avataras, 
literally  "  descents,"  that  is  earthly  incarnations,  of 
Vishnu.  This  is  perhaps  the  most  characteristic  feature 
of  Vishnuism.  At  a  time  much  later  than  the  identifica- 
tion of  Krishna  with  Vishnu,  another  popular  human 
hero,  Rama,  was  similarly  made  into  an  avatara  of  the 
same  god,  and  so  his  cult,  too,  was  received  into  Hindu- 
ism. The  ancient  myth  of  the  fish  who  saved  Manu,  the 
Hindu  Noah,  from  the  world  flood,  was  utilized  in  the 
same  way ;  the  fish  now  becomes  a  recognized  incarnation 
of  Vishnu.  And  so  other  myths,  old  and  new,  became 
absorbed  into  the  general  cult  of  Vishnu  by  the  same 
convenient  method.  To  this  day  Vishnu  is  worshiped 
mostly  in  particular  forms  or  incarnations.  Each  Vish- 
nuite  sect  devotes  itself  as  a  rule  to  one  special  avatara. 
The  most  popular  ones  are  Krishna  and  Rama.  There 
are  usually  said  to  have  been  nine  such  incarnations  in 

M  Bhagavad  Gita  4.8, 

174 


BRAHMANISM  AND  HINDUISM 

all.  There  will  some  day  be  another,  the  idea  of  which  Is 
of  great  interest,  because  it  gives  a  Messianic  tinge  to 
Vishnuism.  The  tenth  and  final  incarnation  of  Vishnu 
will  be  in  the  form  of  Kalkin,  or  Kalki,  a  glorious  Savior, 
who  will  appear  and  free  India  from  barbarian  rule,  and 
finally  establish  his  own  ttrue  religion  upon  earth.  The 
barbarians  referred  to  were  probably  originally  the  Sakas 
or  the  Huns ;  later  the  Mohammedans  were  understood ; 
and  now  it  is  the  English  who,  in  the  hopes  of  many  Vish- 
nuites  of  nationalistic  tendencies,  will  be  expelled  by  the 
Hindu  Messiah,  Kalkin. 

The  spirit  of  sectarian  Hinduism  is  essentially  mono- 
theistic, although  the  forms  it  assumes  sometimes  seem  to 
us  curious.  Most  Hindus,  at  least  practically  all  the 
more  enlightened  ones,  believe  that  there  is  in  reality  but 
one  God,  though  He  is  called  by  many  names.  To  the 
Vishnuite  his  true  or  most  perfect  form  is  Vishnu — 
usually  under  the  guise  of  Krishna  or  Rama.  The  Vish- 
nuite, however,  neither  denies  the  existence  of  (Jiva 
nor  has  any  hostility  to  him  as  a  rule.  The  essential 
tolerance  of  India  shows  itself  most  strikingly  here. 
There  are  exceptions;  instances  have  occurred  of  even 
bloody  conflicts  between  opposing  sectaries;  but  they 
are  rare.  £iva  may  be  thought  of  as  another  form  of 
God,  that  is  of  Vishnu ;  or  he  is  represented  as  an  emana- 
tion of  Vishnu,  and  perhaps  even  as  the  first  of  his 
worshipers.  (Jivaites,  of  course,  think  of  Vishnu  in  simi- 
lar ways.  A  Hindu  regards  himself  as  belonging  to  one 
particular  sect,  the  one  into  which  he  has  been  initiated 
by  a  guru  or  teacher,  and  whose  mantra  or  sacred  formula 
(usually  kept  secret)  he  has  learned.  It  is  the  god  of 
this  sect  whose  name  he  will  call  upon  in  his  hour  of 
death,  and  through  whom  he  hopes  for  final  salvation. 
But  during  his  lifetime  he  is  apt  to  pay  homage  at  many 
shrines  of  other  gods.  Already  in  the  Bhagavad  Gita, 
Krishna  declares  that  any  worship  performed  with  sincere 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

devotion  will  reach  Him,  even  though  not  addressed  to 
Him  by  riame — a  striking  doctrine  and  one  which  must 
be  constantly  borne  in  mind  by  anyone  who  wishes  really 
to  understand  Hinduism. 

The  worship  of  the  Hindu  deities  is  generally  simple 
and  innocent.  Flowers,  food,  and  other  simple  offerings 
are  deposited  in  the  shrines,  before  the  images  of  the 
gods.  Even  the  bloody  Kali  is  now  most  frequently  wor- 
shiped, at  least  in  North  India,  with  offerings  of  animal 
figures  made  of  dough  or  the  like,  instead  of  the  former 
living  victims.  Wealthy  devotees  of  course  may  give 
more  expensive  presents ;  and  some  noted  shrines  have 
thus  become  very  rich.  Some  temples  and  holy  places, 
which  have  acquired  more  than  a  local  celebrity,  are 
visited  by  pilgrims  from  far  and  wide;  in  some  cases 
from  all  over  India.  Many  rivers  also  are  especially 
sacred,  notably  the  Ganges,  on  which  is  located  Benares, 
(Jiva's  favorite  home.  The  shrines  are  tended  by  priests, 
who  are  sometimes  men  of  low  castes.  The  images  or 
idols  are  theoretically  supposed  to  be  actually  inhabited 
by  the  presence  of  the  god,  after  a  fixed  ceremony  of 
consecration  has  been  performed,  the  adhivasa  or  "  mak- 
ing (the  god)  to  dwell  in  (the  image)."  To  the  more 
intellectual  classes,  however,  the  image  is  a  mere  con- 
ventional symbol,  just  as  the  saint's  image  or  crucifix  is 
to  intelligent  Greek  and  Roman  Catholics. 

The  intellectual  basis  of  all  the  sects  is  the  same,  in 
so  far  as  it  concerns  the  three  great  postulates  of  all 
Indian  systems,  to  which  I  referred  in  my  chapter  on 
Buddhism:11  pessimism,  transmigration  (with  karma), 
and  salvation  viewed  as  a  release  from  the  ceaseless  evils 
of  the  round  of  existence.  But  when  it  comes  to  the 
means  for  obtaining  this  release,  there  are  marked  differ- 
ences. We  saw  that  Buddhism  recognizes  three  such 
means:  personal  devotion  to  the  Founder  (who  takes 

u  Page  140  S. 

176 


BRAHMANISM  AND  HINDUISM 

the  place  of  God  to  the  Buddhists)  ;  intellectual  cognition 
or  realization  of  the  religious  truth  he  proclaims;  and 
an  ascetic  or  monastic  life.  It  may  be  said  that  in  this 
formula  Buddhism  includes  all  the  ways  to  salvation 
known  in  India.  But  most  Indian  systems  are  not  so 
catholic. 

For  instance,  there  are  some  rigidly  intellectual  sys- 
tems, like  (Jankara's  school  of  the  Vedanta,  or  like  the 
Sankhya,  in  which  the  intellectual  factor  is  the  only  one. 
"The  truth  shall  make  you  free/'  they  say;  and  they 
interpret  this  in  the  strictest  sort  of  intellectual  sense. 
As  soon  as  one  attains  to  a  genuine  realization  of  the 
metaphysical  truth  which  these  systems  claim  to  teach, 
he  is  thereby  saved.  And  no  amount  of  asceticism  avails, 
nor  yet  of  devotional  fervor  to  any  being  (these  systems 
have  no  God).  These  are  commonly  and  rightly  called 
systems  of  philosophy,  rather  than  of  religion.  Yet  since 
they  profess  to  teach  a  scheme  of  salvation  it  seems  hardly 
possible  to  deny  to  them  the  name  of  religion  also. 

On  this  question  the  Vishnuite  and  Qivaite  sects  have 
a  certain  negative  agreement  among  themselves,  to  this 
extent,  that  they  do  not  regard  this  pure  intellectualism, 
to  which  I  have  just  alluded,  as  the  highest  or  best  way 
to  salvation. 

The  general  position  of  Vishnuism  is  made  clear  once 
and  for  all  in  the  Bhagavad  Gita,  which  may  fairly  be 
called  the  Vishnuite  Bible.  In  it  Krishna  speaks  of  the 
"  way  of  knowledge  "  as  one  road  to  the  highest  goal ; 
but  he  regards  it  as  less  desirable  than  the  "  way  of 
works."  He  also  refers  to  the  argument  used  by  Bud- 
dhism 12  and  other  sects  in  favor  of  monasticism  or 
asceticism,  that  participation  in  worldly  life  necessitates 
action  prompted  by  desire,  and  so  leads  to  the  fruit 
thereof,  continued  existence  in  rebirth.  Krishna's  coun- 
ter-argument to  this  is,  that  one  should  live  in  the  world 

33  Page  149- 
12  177 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

performing  such  acts  as  are  required  by  Duty  (a  sort  of 
categorical  imperative)  without  desire  for  or  interest  in 
the  results  of  the  action.  Actions  so  performed,  he  says, 
do  not  lead  to  continued  existence ;  they  have  no  binding 
effect,  such  as  other  actions,  performed  for  interested 
motives,  have.  Above  all,  however,  the  Gita  exalts 
bhakti,  "  devotion  "  to  God,  that  is  to  Krishna- Vasudeva. 
The  God  of  Vishnuism  is  neither  an  abstract  principle 
nor  a  remote  and  purely  heavenly  being.  He  is  not  only 
philosophically  immanent  in  the  entire  universe;  more 
than  that,  he  is  a  personal,  tender-hearted  lover  of  man- 
kind. He  made  himself  man  to  save  the  world.  And 
he  is  the  direct  and  personal  Savior  of  those  who  trust 
in  him.  He  brings  his  devotees  immediately  to  salva- 
tion. Accordingly,  the  chief  refuge  and  hope  of  man 
should  be  warm,  fervent,  even  ecstatic  love  for  Him. 
This  is  what  is  meant  by  bhakti,  which  has  been  the  main 
reliance  of  the  Vishnuite  sects  in  all  ages.  No  wonder 
that  it  has  suggested  Christianity  to  many  scholars.  But 
it  is  now  generally  recognized  that  the  concept  of  bhakti 
in  India  antedates  the  Christian  era,  so  that  it  cannot  have 
been  derived  from  early  Christian  missionaries,  as  was 
once  held  by  some. 

The  idea  of  bhakti  has  played  an  important  role  in 
the  later  Qivaite  sects,  too.  But  on  the  whole  the  Qvaites 
have  been  rather  more  inclined  to  the  practice  of  ascet- 
icism as  a  means  to  salvation.  This  is  indeed  more  in 
keeping  with  the  originally  sterner  and  gloomier  aspect  of 
their  god. 

III.    SYNCRETIZING   TENDENCIES 

If  we  restrict  the  term  Brahmanism,  as  it  seems  to  me 
best  to  do,  to  a  system  of  ritual  practices  and  social 
observances,  then  we  may  fairly  say  that  Brahmanism 
has  never  fully  satisfied  the  religious  needs  of  any  very 
considerable  proportion  of  the  Indian  people.  Brahman- 

178 


BRAHMANISM  AND  HINDUISM 

ism  has  survived,  in  fact,  only  by  a  constant  course  of 
compromise.  Its  strength  has  lain  in  its  willingness  to 
wink  at  and  tolerate  what  it  could  not  destroy.  It  has 
always  been  ready  to  yield  the  substance,  if  only  it  might 
keep  the  form.  It  has  had  to  stoop  to  conquer. 

I  have  illustrated,  rather  than  sketched,  the  history 
of  sectarian  influences  threatening  Brahmanism  from  be- 
low, from  more  popular  cults.  Quite  as  important  have 
been  the  influences  from  above,  from  the  intellectual  and 
spiritual  leaders  of  India,  often  members  of  the  Brah- 
man caste  itself.  Since  the  days  of  the  Upanishads,  if 
not  before,  these  leaders  have  been  inclined  to  treat  rather 
contemptuously  the  sterile  cult  of  Brahmanism.  There 
is  certainly  no  place  for  a  ritual  of  sacrifice  in  the  mystical 
contemplation  of  the  One  Reality  which  constitutes  the 
religion  or  philosophy  of  the  Upanishads  in  their  best 
moments.  But  Brahmanism  is  not  perturbed.  It  promptly 
declares  that  the  impersonal,  neuter  Brahman  of  the 
Upanishads,  the  unqualified,  unknowable  Absolute,  is 
nothing  but  a  personal,  masculine  god  Brahma,  whom 
the  Brahmans  have  long  since  known  under  the  name  of 
Prajapati,  the  principal  god  of  the  later  Vedic  pantheon, 
and  under  other  similar  names,  all  of  which  have  in  fact 
long  since  been  philosophized  as  names  for  the  Brahman. 

A  little  later  came  Buddhism  and  Jainism,  which  were 
openly  heretical  and  refused  to  be  compromised  with. 
This  attitude  on  their  part  nearly  proved  fatal  to  Brah- 
manism. But  the  cult  of  Krishna  arose  in  the  nick  of 
time.  Wholly  non-Brahmanical,  perhaps  even  anti-Brah- 
manical,  in  origin;  a  monotheistic,  fervently  devotional 
worship  of  a  god  who  originally  had  no  Brahmanical  con- 
nections; Krishnaism  nevertheless  allowed  itself  to  be 
reconciled  to  Brahmanism  by  the  identification  of  Krishna 
with  the  ancient  Vedic  god  Vishnu,  who  already  had 
pretentions  to  rank  as  a  name  for  the  absolute  Brahman. 
And  thereafter  the  cult  of  Krishna- Vishnu  proved  a  most 

179 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

effective  weapon  against  Buddhism.  Krishna,  too, 
whether  by  this  means  or  (more  likely)  even  before  his 
fusion  with  Vishnu,  was  philosophized  as  a  personal 
manifestation  of  the  metaphysical  Absolute.  The  same 
treatment  was  accorded  to  £iva,  who  as  the  heir  of  the 
Vedic  Rudra  already  had  a  position  in  the  Brahmanical 
pantheon. 

The  last  step  in  this  triple  fusion  of  popular  Hindu- 
ism, Brahmanism,  and  the  higher  philosophy,  was  the 
construction  of  the  so-called  Trimurti,  the  "  Three- 
form,"  or  the  Hindu  Trinity.  This  theory  regards  the 
three  names,  Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Civa,  as  three  forms 
of  the  One  God,  three  aspects  of  the  personalized  Abso- 
lute, who  is  Brahma  as  Creator,  Vishnu  as  Preserver,  and 
Civa  as  Destroyer.  Commonplace  as  this  doctrine  is  in 
all  the  literature,  it  has  never  gained  much  foothold  in 
popular  belief.  In  spite  of  it,  the  great  mass  of  Hindus 
are  still  either  Vishnuites,  who  regard  Brahma  as  born 
from  a  lotus  on  Vishnu's  navel  and  Qiva  as  equally 
subordinate  to  Vishnu,  or  else  Civaites,  who  likewise  make 
£iva  supreme  over  the  other  two.  Brahma  has  no  sect, 
and  almost  no  independent  worship. 

In  spite  of  all  this  reconciliation,  the  forms  of  wor- 
ship of  Brahmanism  and  Hinduism  are  kept  absolutely 
distinct,  even  among  those  who  more  or  less  engage  in 
both.  The  classical  Brahmanical  lawbooks  forbid  Brah- 
mans  to  act  as  priests  in  Hindu  temples.  This  pre- 
scription is  now  only  partly  enforced;  but  at  least  in 
parts  of  India,  such  Brahmans  as  disregard  it  are  de- 
spised by  their  brother-Brahmans.  And  a  very  large 
number  of  Brahmans  affect  a  sort  of  mild  and  tolerant 
contempt  for  the  sectarian  worship,  even  though  they 
may  to  some  extent  take  part  in  it. 

The  early  identification  of  both  Vishnu  and  £iva  with 
the  philosophical  Absolute,  the  Brahman,  is  by  no  means 
the  end  of  the  story  of  the  relations  between  the  higher 

1 80 


BRAHMANISM  AND  HINDUISM 

thought  of  India  and  the  sectarian  cults.  Especially  the 
later  Vedanta  philosophy  is  intimately  associated  with 
various  sects  of  Vishnuism,  and  also,  in  a  less  degree, 
with  £ivaite  sects.  As  taught  by  the  great  Cankara,  the 
Vedanta  is  a  pure  idealistic  pantheism,  or  better,  idealistic 
monism,  with  no  place  for  a  personal  God  at  all,  except 
as  a  part  of  wrhat  it  calls  Maya,  the  World-Illusion,  to 
which  all  individual  personality  is  assigned.  But  the 
Vishnuite  teacher  and  sect-founder  Ramanuja  had  a  dif- 
ferent interpretation  of  the  Vedanta,  and  of  the  Upani- 
shads  on  which  it  claims  to  rest.  He  taught  what  is 
called  a  "  qualified  monism,"  in  which  God  is  real,  and 
even  individual  souls  have  a  partial  reality  as  "  parts  " 
of  Him.  Out  of  this  school  have  sprung  indirectly  most 
of  the  modern  sects  of  Vishnuism.  Some  of  them  even 
go  so  far  as  openly  to  renounce  the  monistic  position  and 
declare  themselves  dualists,  believing  in  the  independent 
reality  of  God,  the  world,  and  the  individual  soul.  Some 
of  these  sects,  even,  still  profess  to  follow  the  Vedanta 
system.  Their  doctrines,  in  point  of  fact,  come  much 
closer  to  those  of  the  ancient  Sankhya  system,  or  rather 
of  its  offshoot,  the  Yoga. 

I  have  felt  compelled  to  slight  some  important  phases 
of  my  subject,  and  even  to  omit  altogether  some,  which 
may  perhaps  be  considered  as  important  as  certain  of  the 
phases  to  which  I  have  referred.13  But  the  subject  of 
modern  Indian  religions  is  so  large  and  so  desperately 
complicated  that  it  is  hard  enough  to  unravel  its  historic 
aspects  even  with  unlimited  time.  Those  who  are  at  a 

18 1  might  allude  here  by  way  of  example  to  one  of  these  neg- 
lected phases,  viz.,  the  cult  of  Radha,  favorite  of  Krishna,  who  is 
quite  extensively  worshiped  either  alone  or  with  her  lover.  The 
love  of  Krishna  for  her  is  sometimes  allegorized  as  the  passionate 
longing  of  the  human  soul  seeking  God.  The  famous  Gita  Govinda 
of  Jayadeva  is  an  exquisite  lyric  poem  describing  in  passionately  sen- 
suous and  highly  erotic  terms  the  romance  of  Krishna  and  Radha. 
It  has  been  beautifully  rendered  into  English  by  Sir  Edwin  Arnold. 

181 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

familiar  with  the  field  will,  I  am  sure,  be  lenient  in  their 
judgment  of  me. 

As  for  those  to  whom  the  subject  is  new,  I  will  ask 
them  in  conclusion  to  carry  away  with  them  this  final 
thought  : 

Hinduism  is  a  gigantic  Proteus,  the  very  essence  of 
which  is  its  innumerable  forms.  Yet  there  is  somehow 
an  underlying  sense  of  unity  in  these  forms — "  if  dimly, 
yet  indeed  revealed."  To  state  in  words  a  generalization 
of  Hinduism  may  be  bold.  Some  may  doubt  whether 
there  is  any  such  thing.  Yet  I  will  venture  on  the  follow- 
ing as  an  expression  of  what  seems  after  all  to  come  out 
of  Hinduism — sometimes  plainly  stated,  perhaps  more 
often  vaguely  felt : 

You  may  call  God  by  whatever  name  you  will;  but 
in  truth  God  is  One. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

BARTH-WOOD  (see  page  134),  Parts  II  and  V. 

HOPKINS  (see  page  134),  Chapters  ix-xi  and  xiv-xvii. 

M.  MONIER  WILLIAMS:  Brahman-ism  and  Hinduism.  4th  ed.,  New 
York,  1891. 

L.  D.  BARNETT:  Hinduism.    London,  1906.    Very  brief  summary. 

J.  N.  FARQUHAR:  Primer  of  Hinduism.  London,  1912.  Compact  and 
very  useful. 

M.  MONIER  WILLIAMS  :  Hinduism.    London,  1906. 

N.  MACNICOL:  Indian  Theism.    London,  1915. 

J.  B.  PRATT:  India  and  its  Faiths.  Boston  and  New  York,  1915.  Ad- 
mirable sketch  of  present-day  conditions  in  historical  aspects. 

R.  G.  BHANDARKAR:  Vaishnavismt  Saivism,  etc.    Strassburg,  1913. 

W.  CROOKE:  Religions  [of  India];  in  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India, 
2nd  Edition,  Vol.  I,  pages  402-445.  Oxford,  1909. 

,  TRANSLATIONS  : 
THE  BHAGAVAD  GITA  I 

1.  SIR  EDWIN  ARNOLD:  The  Song  Celestial.    Like  all  of  Arnold's 

numerous  translations  from  the  Sanskrit,  this  cannot  be  too 
highly  recommended  for  the  success  with  which  it  reproduces 
the  spirit  of  the  original,  and  transfuses  it  into  a  most  charming 
poetic  English  form.  Those  who  want  to  enjoy  the  thought  of 
the  Gita,  beautifully  expressed  in  English,  can  find  no  better  ren- 
dering. But  it  is  not  meticulously  accurate. 

2.  K.  T.  TELANG:  The  Bhagavad  Glta,  with  Introduction.     Oxford, 

1882.     [Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  viii.] 

3.  L.  D.  BARNETT:   The  Bhagavad  Glta,  -with  introduction.  ^  Lon- 

don, 1905.    Perhaps  the  best  scholarly  translation  in  English. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
ZOROASTRIANISM. 

BY  ROLAND  G.  KENT 

THE  modern  traveler,  coming  from  the  lands  of 
western  civilization  and  setting  foot  for  the  first  time  in 
India,  the  land  of  many  religions,  finds  himself  in  a  maze 
of  brilliant  color,  far  surpassing  that  which  he  may  have 
seen  in  the  Nearer  East.  Through  this  kaleidoscopic 
panorama  move  the  dignified  white-robed  figures  of  the 
Parsi.s,  the  so-called  "  Fire-worshipers."  Should  the 
Occidental  traveler  make  inquiries  concerning  them,  he 
would  find  that  they  are  held  in  the  highest  esteem  for 
their  generosity  toward  all  philanthropic  movements ;  they 
are  famed  for  their  liberality  toward  relief  funds  of  all 
kinds,  for  their  assistance  to  hospitals,  for  their  patron- 
age of  education,  even  of  education  for  the  female  sex — 
a  cause  which  can  hardly  be  expected  to  have  progressed 
very  rapidly  in  the  Orient.  By  occupation  they  are  mostly 
merchants,  though  they  are  well  known  also  as  ship- 
builders; in  the  latter  capacity  they  provide  the  means 
for  their  carrying  on  of  commerce.  In  number  they  ares. 
about  one  hundred  thousand;  but  this  is  only  one-thir- 
tieth of  one  per  cent,  of  the  teeming  millions  forming 
the  population  of  British  India  and  Burma,  and  the 
prominence  of  this  tiny  fraction  of  Parsis  is  a  testimony 
to  their  industry  and  capabilities,  justifying  us  in  giving 
to  them,  the  followers  of  Zoroaster,  a  place  in  the  list 
of  the  great  religions  that  is  denied  to  other  faiths  whose 
followers  are  many  times  as  numerous ;  for  example,  the 
Sikhs  and  the  Jains,  of  India,  and  the  Mormons,  of  the 
Western  United  States. 

There  are  three  conspicuous  features  of  Parsi  re- 

183 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

ligion,  as  it  impresses  the  superficial  observer  to-day : 
fire-worship,  a  thorough-going  duality  of  good  and  bad, 
and  the  disposal  of  the  dead.  But  the  Parsi  himself 
indignantly  denies  that  he  worships  the  fire :  the  Sacred 
Fire  is  only  the  symbol  of  the  supreme  god,  Ahura  Maz- 
dah  (Ormuzd),  and  is  not  worshiped  nor  revered  ex- 
cept in  that  capacity — somewhat  as  the  Cross  of  Chris- 
tianity is  not  in  itself  the  object  of  worship.  Yet  both 
among  Parsis  and  among  Christians  there  is  the  danger 
that  the  symbol  may  be  taken  for  the  reality;  and  with 
the  less  educated  or  less  thoughtful  of  the  Parsis  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  there  is  in  truth  a  worship  of  the 
Fire,  rather  than  of  the  Supreme  God  represented  by  it. 
The  places  of  worship  of  the  Parsis  are  known  as  Fire- 
Temples,  since  it  is  there  that  the  Sacred  Fire  is  kept 
and  the  ritual  is  performed;  but  there  is  no  congrega- 
tional worship,  and  the  ritual  is  performed  privately  in 
the  temple  by  the  priests.  These  priests  must  be  sons 
of  priests,  though  sons  of  priests  may  choose  other  call- 
ings; and  as  the  livelihood  of  the  priest  is  a  scanty  one, 
compared  with  that  of  the  Parsi  in  the  business  world, 
the  more  able  and  energetic  of  the  sons  of  priests  are 
likely  to  follow  secular  callings,  so  that  the  priests  are 
rather  drawn  from  the  indolent  and  incompetent.  They 
must  memorize  the  sacred  writings,  known  as  the  Avesta, 
for  purposes  of  recitation  in  the  ritual;  and  since  this  is 
in  a  tongue  now  long  extinct  as  a  spoken  language,  and 
decipherable  by  scholars  only  with  difficulty  and  doubt, 
the  priests  are  many  of  them  in  entire  ignorance  of  the 
meaning  of  those  passages  which  they  recite,  though  of 
recent  years  there  has  been  a  movement  for  the  better 
instruction  of  candidates  for  the  priesthood.  In  these 
temples,  the  Sacred  Fire  is  maintained  by  the  priests 
and  never  allowed  to  go  out;  it  is  fed  with  holy  fuel, 
including  sandalwood,  which  burns  with  a  fragrance. 
The  most  notable  ceremony  is  that  connected  with  the 

184 


ZOROASTRIANISM 

preparation  and  drinking  ot  the  Haoma- juice  (horn- 
juice),  which  is  in  origin  and  in  etymology  the  same  as 
the  Soma  of  the  Veda. 

The  duality  of  the  theology  of  the  Parsis  may  be 
explained  briefly:  the  entire  universe  is  composed  of 
good  and  bad  creations;  whenever  the  Good  Spirit  cre- 
ated any  thing  or  creature,  the  Evil  Spirit,  Angra  Manyu 
(Ahriman)  created  its  evil  counterpart.  The  develop- 
ment of  the  world  is  then  a  battle  between  the  good  and 
the  bad,  which  is  to  eventuate  in  the  final  victory  of  the 
good  and  the  subjection  of  the  Evil  Spirit.  Here,  again, 
the  modern  Parsi  objects  to  this  interpretation  of  his 
faith,  saying  that  the  Evil  Spirit  is  not  coordinate  with 
the  Good  Spirit,  but  is  distinctly  inferior  at  all  times. 
That,  however,  the  modern  believer  is  attempting  to  bring 
a  strict  monotheism  into  a  religion  which  was  by  its 
founder  endowed  with  this  very  dualism,  will  appear  later, 
when  we  consider  the  testimony  of  that  founder,  Zoro- 
aster, from  his  own  words. 

To  the  Parsi,  earth,  fire,  and  water  are  all  possessed 
of  holiness  which  must  not  suffer  pollution;  therefore 
dead  bodies  may  not  be  buried,  nor  burned,  nor  allowed 
to  rest  in  the  waters  where  the  living  person  may  have 
met  with  death,  accidental  or  otherwise.  For  the  dis- 
posal of  the  dead,  without  rendering  unclean  these  ele- 
ments (holy  because  they  are  creations  of  the  Good 
Spirit),  they  have  constructed  the  so-called  Towers  of 
Silence,  great  round  structures  open  to  the  sky,  with  a 
metal  grating  at  some  distance  from  the  earth.  Into 
these  they  carry  the  dead  body,  and  place  it  on  the 
gratings ;  within  a  few  minutes  the  vultures  swoop  down 
and  strip  the  flesh  from  the  corpse,  while  the  bones  fall 
through  the  grating  and  an  ingenious  arrangement  pre- 
vents the  ritual  contamination  of  the  earth  beneath.  Hor- 
rible as  this  seems  to  us,  it  is  a  matter  of  pride  to  the 
Parsi  that  it  is  sanitary,  for  he  claims — and  I  have  no 

185 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

facts  witb  which  to  contest  his  claim — that  no  contagious 
disease  has  ever  spread  among  the  Parsis,  nor  has  this 
disposal  of  the  dead  ever  spread  contagion  to  others, 
though  India  is  ever  the  home  of  plague  and  epidemic. 
But,  if  we  may  again  anticipate,  Zoroaster  himself  did 
not  contemplate  this  mode  of  disposal  of  the  dead,  but 
burial,  the  holy  Earth  lending  indestructibility  until  the 
Day  of  the  Last  Judgment. 

But  let  us  turn  now  and  take  a  survey  of  the  tra- 
ditional history  of  this  religion,  as  recounted  by  its  own 
followers,  from  its  inception  to  the  present  day,  before 
we  attempt  to  glean  from  the  oldest  portions  of  theAvesta, 
the  Parsi  Bible,  the  doctrines  and  practices  which  Zoro- 
aster himself  sought  to  propagate. 

SKETCH  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  RELIGION 
At  a  very  early  date,  somewhere  in  Persia,  and  prob- 
ably in  the  northwest,  Zoroaster  was  born;  the  tradition 
sets  this  as  late  as  660  B.C.  His  birth  was  heralded  by 
marvelous  happenings,  and  for  some  years  the  powers 
of  Evil  sought  to  destroy  him,  but  his  life  was  on  every 
occasion  miraculously  preserved.  Seeing  that  the  child 
was  marked  for  a  great  future,  his  father  placed  him 
under  the  care  of  a  wise  teacher.  To  the  Persian,  fifteen 
is  the  ideal  age  for  attaining1  to  manhood;  at  this  age 
Zoroaster  retired  from  the  world  for  solitary  meditation 
and  preparation  for  his  great  calling.  When  he  was 
thirty  years  of  age,  he  received  the  revelation,  and  within 
a  short  time  had  his  seven  visions,  the  first  a  conference 
with  Ahuramazda  himself,  the  succeeding  ones  with  the 
six  archangels  successively:  Vohu  Manah  or  Good 
Thought,  Asha  Vahishta  or  Best  Righteousness,  Khsha- 
thra  Varya  or  Desirable  Sovereignty,  Spenta  Armati  or 
Holy  Devotion,  Harwtat  or  Welfare,  and  Amrtat  or 
Immortality.  In  obedience  to  the  instructions  received 
in  these  visions  and  by  virtue  of  the  powers  which  he 

186 


ZOROASTRIANISM 

had  therein  received,  Zoroaster  set  out  to  preach  the  true 
religion.  But  it  was  a  slow  and  discouraging  mission; 
at  the  end  of  ten  years  he  won  his  first  convert,  his  own 
cousin.  Two  years  later  he  secured  a  hearing  before  the 
Kavi  or  Lord  Vishtaspa,  King  of  Balkh  in  northeastern 
Persia,  where  he  contests  with  the  wise  men  of  the 
court  and  comes  off  victor;  but  a  conspiracy  lands  him 
in  prison,  from  which  he  escapes  only  by  the  offer  to 
restore  from  a  mysterious  illness  the  favorite  black  horse 
of  the  king.  This  done,  Vishtaspa  is  converted,  and 
with  him  his  family  and  his  court.  The  critical  moment 
of  the  Zoroastrian  faith  had  been  successfully  passed. 

With  the  support  of  the  royal  circle  at  Balkh,  the 
faith  entered  into  the  missionary  stage.  There  are 
echoes  of  conversions  among  the  Turanians  of  the  north, 
among  the  Hindus  and  among  the  Greeks ;  we  even  hear 
that  the  sacred  writings  of  Zoroaster  were  translated 
into  a  Greek  version.  Whether  the  Prophet  himself 
went  on  these  missions  we  may  doubt ;  his  time  he  may 
rather  have  spent  in  organizing  the  religion  and  in  estab- 
lishing the  ritual  at  home,  where  he  was  Chief  Priest  in 
charge  of  the  Sacred  Fire.  But  the  propagation  of  the 
faith  led  to  enmities,  and  war  came  on  with  Arjath-aspa, 
King  of  the  Hyaonians,  a  Turanian  people.  The  first 
war  ends  in  the  rout  of  the  Turanians,  but  in  the  second 
war,  before  the  final  victory  of  the  true  believers,  Balkh 
was  taken,  and  the  aged  Zoroaster  slain  as  he  stood  by 
the  Sacred  Fire  in  ministration.  Zoroaster  was  seventy- 
seven  years  of  age  at  his  death,  which  the  traditional 
chronology  makes  583  B.C. 

The  death  of  the  Prophet  did  not  interfere  with  the 
onward  career  of  the  faith  which  he  had  proclaimed;  a 
series  of  high-priests  followed  him,  down  to  the  time  of 
the  invasion  of  the  Macedonian  Alexander.  The  sacred 
writings  of  Zoroaster,  known  as  the  Avesta,  were  of 
great  extent,  and  were  reputed  to  have  contained  over  two 

187 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

million  verses;  they  were  written  in  golden  letters  on 
twelve  thousand  cowhides,  tied  together  with  golden 
bands.  This  precious  archetype  of  the  Avesta  was  de- 
stroyed by  Alexander  when  he  burned  the  palace  at  Per- 
sepolis ;  and  it  was  only  fragments  and  portions  preserved 
by  the  memories  of  the  priests,  which  escaped  and  were 
later  gathered  together.  The  Zoroastrian  faith  persisted 
through  the  time  of  the  semi-Greek  dynasties,  and  seems 
to  have  been  again  the  state  religion  under  the  Parthian 
kingdom,  one  of  whose  rulers  appears  to  have  attempted 
to  gather  together  the  more  or  less  scattered  holy  writ- 
ings; this  was  in  the  first  century  A.D.  But  the  coming 
in  of  the  Sassanian  kings  brought  about  a  new  golden 
age  for  the  faith;  the  first  ruler  of  this  line,  Ardashir 
Babagan  (226-240)  directed  his  chief  priest  to  collect 
the  scattered  portions  of  the  Avesta  and  to  compile  a 
new  Avesta,  as  nearly  like  the  original  as  was  possible. 
Shapur  II  (309-380)  had  it  brought  into  complete  or- 
der, and  gave  it  the  definitive  form  which  it  now  has. 
The  overthrow  of  the  Sassanians  and  the  subjection  of 
Persia  in  652  by  the  Mohammedan  invaders  ended  this 
period  of  prosperity,  and  the  Zoroastrian  was  forced  to 
accept  the  beliefs  of  his  conqueror  or  to  be  treated  as  an 
outlaw.  Some  few  have  indeed  survived  centuries  of 
oppression  and  persecution  in  their  native  land,  though 
even  to-day  they  dread  to  have  their  neighbors  know 
their  religious  faith.  They  number  perhaps  ten  thousand. 
But  to-day  the  greater  portion  of  the  Zoroastrians 
make  their  home  in  India.  A  certain  number  of  those 
who  shunned  forced  conversion  to  Islam,  made  their  way 
presently  to  the  island  of  Ormuz  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Persian  Gulf,  where  they  remained  for  fifteen  years; 
then  they  resolved  to  go  on  farther,  to  India,  and  voy- 
aged to  the  island  of  Diu,  where  they  remained  for  nine- 
teen years,  during  which  they  learned  to  speak  Gujerati, 
the  language  of  the  country.  They  then  set  sail  again, 

1 88 


ZOROASTRIANISM 

for  reasons  not  definitely  known.  On  the  voyage  they 
were  caught  by  a  terrific  storm,  and  they  seemed  destined 
to  perish;  but  in  response  to  a  devout  prayer,  the  text 
of  which  has  come  down  to  us,  the  storm  abated,  and 
they  arrived  in  safety  at  Sanjan,  on  the  coast  of  Gujerat. 
The  newcomers  sent  a  venerable  priest  to  the  chief  of 
the  district,  to  ask  permission  to  land  and  make  a  settle- 
ment, but  though  he  detailed  the  sufferings  and  hard- 
ships which  had  driven  them  thither,  the  local  chief, 
observing  the  hardy  appearance  of  the  refugees,  feared 
for  his  throne,  and  asked  the  priest  to  make  a  statement 
of  the  tenets  of  their  faith.  This  he  did,  cleverly  select- 
ing those  features  which  harmonized  most  closely  with 
Hindu  practices;  and  the  desired  permission  was  then 
given,  on  condition  that  they  should  adopt  the  language 
of  the  country,  giving  up  their  own;  should  wear  no 
armor;  should  dress  their  women  in  the  Hindu  fashion, 
and  should  perform  marriage  ceremonies  at  night.  The 
conditions  were  accepted.  The  Parsis,  as  they  were  now 
called,  a  word  which  means  nothing  more  nor  less  than 
Persians,  prospered  in  their  new  surroundings  for  several 
centuries,  until  the  approach  of  Mohammedan  forces 
soon  after  1300  released  them  from  their  promise  not 
to  wear  armor,  for  they  enrolled  themselves  under  the 
chief  of  Sanjan  and  won  a  great  victory  for  him,  though 
this  was  avenged  speedily  by  the  Mohammedans,  and  the 
Parsis  became  refugees  in  the  mountains.  From  that  time 
there  were  various  persecutions  of  the  Parsis,  wherever 
they  settled,  mostly  at  the  hands  of  the  Mohammedans, 
but  sometimes  from  the  Hindu  rulers. 

A  new  period  of  prosperity  bloomed  for  them  in 
Bombay,  to  which  some  Parsi  merchants  emigrated  from 
Surat  in  the  seventeenth  century,  probably  not  long  before 
the  Portuguese  ceded  that  region  to  the  English,  in  1668. 
Since  that  time,  Bombay  has  been  the  chief  Parsi  center ; 
here  they  have  flourished,  have  built  their  temples  and 

189 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

their  tower  of  silence,  have  spread  out  as  merchants 
through  the  East,  and  have  been  prominent  in  works  of 
charity,  public  spirit,  and  education.  They  have  not 
forgotten  their  coreligionists  in  Persia,  whose  condition 
they  have  notably  ameliorated.  In  essentials  they  have 
remained  faithful  to  the  principles  of  their  religion,  though 
changed  circumstances  must  always  bring  changes  in 
practice. 

THE  ZOROASTRIAN  LITERATURE 

The  sacred  books  of  the  Par  sis  are  known  as  the 
Avesta,  or,  more  commonly  but  wrongly,  as  the  Zend- 
avesta.  In  its  present  form  it  is  composed  of  five  parts : 
the  Yasna  contains  the  Gathas  or  metrical  hymns  of  Zoro- 
aster himself,  of  varying  content,  giving  the  main  tenets 
of  the  religion  in  the  form  in  which  it  was  promulgated 
by  its  founder;  the  remainder  is  composed  mainly  of 
various  invocations  used  in  the  ritual.  The  Vlspered  con- 
tains additional  material  used  in  the  liturgy.  The  third 
portion,  the  Vendidad,  is  the  priestly  code,  with  detailed 
injunction  as  to  what  the  faithful  should  do  and  should 
avoid  doing,  and  the  penalties  for  transgression;  it  gives 
also  an  interesting  account  of  the  creation,  the  golden  age, 
and  the  first  destructive  winter.  The  Vendidad  also  is 
used  in  the  liturgy,  and  like  the  Yasna  and  the  Vispered 
belongs  to  the  priests  only.  The  Yashts  are  songs  of 
praise,  with  invocations  of  separate  angels  of  the  religion, 
and  the  best  of  them  may  be  considered  to  represent  the 
old  religious  poetry  of  the  Iranians.  The  Khordah  Avesta 
or  Little  Avesta  is  a  collection  of  shorter  prayers  and  the 
like,  destined  for  the  use  of  laity  as  well  as  of  the  clergy. 

But  these  five  books  are  only  a  tiny  portion  of  the 
original  Avesta,  which,  we  are  told,  contained  two  mil- 
lion verses.  The  destruction  by  Alexander,  if  historical, 
of  the  great  official  copy,  and  the  eclipse  of  the  religion 
until  the  Sassanian  revival,  some  half-dozen  centuries 

190 


ZOROASTRIANISM 

later,  are  responsible  for  the  loss  of  the  greatest  portion 
of  the  original  text.  Even  much  of  the  canon  which  was 
compiled  by  the  Sassanians,  was  lost  in  the  Mohammedan 
persecutions;  yet  what  to-day  survives  makes  in  trans- 
lation a  volume  of  about  five  hundred  large  pages. 

The  Persian  language  spoken  in  Sassanian  times  is 
known  as  Pahlavi,  and  is  quite  different  from  the  earlier 
language.  Consequently,  a  translation  of  the  Avesta  was 
made  into  Pahlavi,  since  the  orginal  speech  was  quite 
unintelligible  except  to  those  priests  to  whom  the  tra- 
ditional meaning  had  been  handed  down  by  word  of 
mouth,  and  this  translation  into  Pahlavi  was  known  as  the 
Zand  or  Zend.  From  this  came  the  common  but  errone- 
ous term  Zendavesta — an  inversion  of  Avesta  and  Zend, 
the  Avesta  and  Pahlavi  translation.  There  was  written 
also  a  Pahlavi  Commentary,  known  as  the  Pazand;  and 
there  was  a  whole  series  of  other  writings  in  Pahlavi, 
o-n  topics  relating  to  the  religion. 

The  study  of  the  Avesta  in  the  Occidental  world 
begins  soon  after  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
A  few  texts  of  portions  had  been  brought  to  Europe, 
but  they  were  utterly  unintelligible,  as  even  the  alphabet 
was  unknown.  Some  tracings  made  from  a  manuscript 
at  Oxford  were  sent  to  Paris  as  a  specimen,  and  there, 
in  1754,  were  seen  by  a  young  Frenchman  named  Anque- 
til  du  Perron.  They  fired  him  with  an  unquenchable 
desire  to  solve  their  mysteries,  and  in  an  effort  to  reach 
the  Orient  he  enlisted  as  a  soldier  in  troops  going  to 
India;  but  his  object  becoming  known,  the  French  gov- 
ernment presented  him  with  his  discharge  and  a  free 
passage  to  India.  There,  at  Surat,  he  succeeded  in  over- 
coming the  distrust  of  the  Parsi  priests,  and  after  he  had 
learned  Persian,  he  was  instructed  in  the  Avesta  and  in 
their  ceremonies,  and  was  presented  with  some  of  their 
manuscripts.  After  seven  years  in  India,  Anquetil  re- 
turned to  France,  and  in  1771,  after  ten  years  more  of 

191 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

study,  he  issued  in  three  volumes  the  first  edition  of  the 
Avesta,  with  translation  and  commentary. 

But  pioneer  work  in  any  field  leads  to  errors.  The 
traditional  knowledge  of  the  priests  was  sadly  corrupted 
by  the  lapse  of  time,  and  the  zealous  Frenchman  was 
greatly  handicapped  by  having  to  learn  one  strange  lan- 
guage, Avestan,  through  the  medium  of  another  strange 
language,  Persian,  which  he  understood  but  imperfectly. 
Anquetil,  also,  was  not  a  trained  scholar.  The  Avesta, 
further,  has  a  great  amount  of  tiresome  and  futile  repe- 
titions. As  a  result,  the  subject  matter  presented  by  this 
first  edition  was  in  part  so  obscure,  in  part  so  lacking  in 
high  philosophical  and  religious  ideas,  that  English  and 
German  scholars  mostly  attacked  it  as  a  forgery,  if  not 
of  Anquetil's  own  making,  then  foisted  upon  him  by  the 
Parsi  priests.  But  the  authenticity  of  the  work  was  ac- 
cepted in  France  from  the  very  first,  and  in  1825,  when 
Sanskrit  studies  had  progressed,  Sanskritists  began  to 
examine  the  Avesta,  and  they  observed  that  there  was 
a  close  kinship  of  the  two  languages.  With  this  began 
the  real  interpretation  of  the  Avesta.  Since  then,  a 
fairly  numerous  company  of  scholars,  one  of  the  most 
eminent  of  whom,  I  am  happy  to  say,  is  an  American, 
Professor  A.  V.  W.  Jackson  of  Columbia  University, 
have  devoted  themselves  to  the  study  of  the  Avesta;  and 
while  there  is  of  course  much  divergence  in  detail,  the 
variations  are  not  often  of  fundamental  importance  for 
our  conclusions.  We  must  remember  that  the  traditional 
teachings  of  the  Parsi  priests  must  not  be  taken  at  their 
face  value,  though  they  must  always  receive  due  con- 
sideration; the  tradition  has  suffered  much  in  the  cen- 
turies of  persecution.  But  we  have  the  help  of  the  Pah- 
lavi  translation  and  commentary  which  have  been  men- 
tioned (though  these  are  often  more  difficult  to  interpret 
than  the  Avesta  itself)  ;  there  are  translations  of  the 
Avesta  into  modern  Persian  and  into  Sanskrit — both  of 

192 


ZOROASTRIANISM 

course  depending  upon  the  more  or  less  faulty  under- 
standing of  the  Avesta  by  the  priests  at  the  time  of 
the  making  of  the  translations.  The  great  aid  to  inter- 
pretation is  that  which  is  brought  by  comparative  phi- 
lology, with  its  scientific  methods  of  etymologizing,  and 
this  is  the  corrective  to  the  errors  in  the  tradition.  What 
may  be  said  as  to  the  original  doctrines  of  the  Zoroastrian 
faith  in  the  remaining  portion  of  this  lecture  should  be 
understood  as  based  on  the  study  of  the  Avesta  in  the 
light  of  these  various  means  of  interpretation,'  by  which 
scholars  may  arrive  at  reasonably  accurate  conclusions. 

I  have  earlier  stated  that  certain  practices  of  the 
Parsis  of  to-day,  such  as  the  manner  of  disposal  of  the 
dead,  cannot  be  traced  back  to  Zoroaster  himself.  For 
the  actual  teachings  of  the  prophet,  we  should  restrict 
ourselves  to  those  portions  of  the  Avesta  which  may  be 
regarded  as  his  very  words,  the  chapters  of  the  Yasna 
which  are  known  as  the  Gathas,  and  are  distinguished 
from  the  other  writings  by  style,  language,  and  form. 
What,  therefore,  is  next  to  be  said,  concerning  the  original 
nature  of  Zoroastrianism,  will  be  limited  to  what  we  can 
find  in  the  Gathas. 

THE  THEOLOGY. 

The  religion  of  Zoroaster  has  a  supreme  God,  later 
known  as  Ahuramazda,  or  Ormuzd.  But  while  both 
Ahum  and  Mazdah  are  used  in  the  Gathas  as  names  of 
the  God,  neither  name  is  definitely  and  exclusively  ap- 
plied in  this  way.  The  word  Ahura  is  still  at  times  a 
common  no-un  meaning  Lord,  referring  sometimes  to  an 
earthly  prince,  though  usually  to  the  God ;  Mazdah,  which 
means  either  Wisdom  or  The  Wise  One,  is  in  one  passage 
coupled  with  another  noun,  so  that  the  God  is  addressed 
as  "  Mazdah  and  King,"  showing  that  the  name  is  not 
yet  specialized  as  a  peculiar  personal  name  of  the  Deity. 
Still  less  is  the  combination  Ahuramazda  a  fixed  ex- 
13  193 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

pression  in  the  Gathas.  In  three- fourths  of  the  stanzas 
where  both  Ahura  and  Mazdah  occur,  the  two  words  are 
separated  by  intervening  words;  when  they  occur  to- 
gether the  order  is  always  Mazdah  Ahura,  never  Ahura- 
mazda  as  in  the  later  writings  of  the  religion,  unless  a 
metrical  pause  intervenes.  Both  portions  of  the  combina- 
tion receive  separate  case  endings,  and  the  group  is  a 
phrase,  not  a  compound.  Further,  the  plural  of  Mazdah 
Ahura  is  used  apparently  to  denote  the  Deity  and  the 
chief  archangels,  of  whom  something  will  be  said  later. 
And  the  name  Mazdah  alone  is  used  very  frequently, 
while  Ahura  alone  is  used  occasionally  to  denote  the  Deity. 
From  this  lack  of  specialization  in  the  name,  we  may 
conclude  that  the  employment  of  these  names  in  this  mean- 
ing originated  with  the  Prophet  Zoroaster  himself.  Ahura 
is,  of  course,  an  old  word,  used  in  application  to  a  deity 
of  more  than  human  power ;  but  there  is  no  such  meaning 
for  Mazdah  until  it  was  applied  to  the  God  by  the  Prophet. 
In  the  use  of  this  word,  we  see  the  work  of  Zoroaster 
himself. 

Mazdah,  to  give  him  the  original  name,  was  the  cre- 
ator of  the  Universe :  of  the  sun,  the  moon  and  the  stars, 
the  earth,  the  sky,  the  waters,  the  plants,  the  winds  and 
the  clouds;  of  man;  of  the  cattle;  of  morning,  noon  and 
night;  of  light  and  darkness;  sleeping  and  waking;  of 
wisdom;  of  the  obedience  of  son  to  father,  and  of  all 
things.  He  is  primeval  and  eternal,  ever  one  and  the 
same,  all  powerful  and  all-knowing;  he  sees  afar,  and 
cannot  be  deceived.  He  knows  the  past  and  the  future ; 
he  is  just,  assigning  rewards  and  punishment  to  men 
after  death  in  accord  with  their  deserts ;  but  he  is  merciful 
to  the  good  and  stern  to  the  evil.  In  his  mercy,  he  made 
Zoroaster  his  prophet  and  sent  him  to  teach  men  how 
they  might  attain  to  the  good  reward  in  the  next  world. 

But  Mazdah,  though  omnipotent,  has  an  enemy,  whom 
he  is  apparently  unable  to  overcome  without  the  help  of 

194 


ZOROASTRIANISM 

righteous  men.  For  in  the  beginning  of  all  things,  Zoro- 
aster tells  us  (Yasna  30:3-4),  there  were  two  primal 
Spirits,  the  Good  and  the  Bad,  good  and  bad  respectively 
in  thought  and  word  and  deed.  They  were  twins;  and 
the  holier  of  the  twain  said  to  the  other,  his  destined 
enemy,  "  Neither  the  thoughts  nor  the  teachings  nor  the 
wisdoms  nor  the  beliefs  nor  the  words  nor  the  deeds 
nor  the  selves  nor  the  souls  of  us  two  agree."  So  began 
the  conflict  of  good  and  evil :  the  Good  Spirit  created  Life, 
and  the  Evil  Spirit  countered  by  creating  Non-Life.  Thus 
all  the  world  is  made  up  of  two  opposing  forces  and  crea- 
tions, the  good  created  by  the  Good  Spirit  and  the  evil 
created  by  the  Evil  Spirit. 

It  seems  almost  inevitable  to  identify  the  Good  Spirit 
of  this  story  with  Mazdah  himself,  and  to  conclude  that 
there  is  a  duality  in  the  Zoroastrian  religion,  under 
which  the  Evil  Spirit  hampers  the  supremacy  of  Mazdah. 
Such  is  the  impression  given  to  the  unphilosophic  mind, 
at  least.  It  is  true  that  the  Evil  Spirit  is  to  be  overcome 
at  the  Last  Judgment,  but  in  the  meantime  he  is  an  inde- 
pendent power,  at  times  reducing  the  prophet  quite  to 
despair  by  the  activity  and  successes  of  his  followers. 
There  is  in  this  situation  the  difficult  problem  how  the 
presence  of  victorious  evil — though  the  victory  may  be 
only  for  the  present — is  reconcilable  with  belief  in  an  all- 
powerful  God  of  mercy  and  goodness;  and  Zoroaster's 
solution  is  perhaps  a  presentation  of  the  problem  rather 
than  a  solution.  The  most  successful  interpretation  that 
has  been  suggested  to  remove  the  difficulty  is  that  which 
makes  Mazdah  the  Deity  in  his  universal  aspect,  creator 
of  everything;  as  soon  as  the  good  is  created,  that  im- 
plies the  creation  of  its  evil  counterpart ;  the  Good  Spirit 
is  therefore  the  aspect  of  Mazdah  in  which  he  created 
what  is  good,  and  the  Evil  Spirit  follows  as  a  corollary 
to  complete  the  picture,  being  an  aspect  of  Mazdah  neces- 
sarily implied  by  his  creation  of  the  good.  Yet  the  making 

195 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

of  the  Evil  Spirit  a  part  of  the  great  and  beneficent 
Deity  is  hardly  one  that  appeals  to  our  minds,  and  while 
the  logic  may  be  valid,  such  a  doctrine  repels  rather  than 
attracts. 

The  Evil  Spirit  is  known  in  the  Gathas  as  the  Druj, 
the  Lie  or  (perhaps  better)  Deceit.  He  is  always  the 
enemy  of  the  good,  seeking  to  destroy  it  and  its  followers ; 
his  decisions,  his  thoughts,  words  and  deeds  are  evil,  and 
his  home  is  in  the  place  of  punishment,  as  that  of  Mazdah 
is  in  Paradise.  All  these  qualities  will  appear  more  clearly 
when  we  come  to  the  character  of  the  followers  of  the 
Evil  Spirit. 

Now  about  Mazdah,  in  later  times,  there  were  ranged 
certain  archangels  known  as  Amshaspands  (ainesha 
spentas)  or  Immortal  Holy  Ones.  All  of  these  appear 
in  the  Gathas,  but  they  are  not  all  distinctly  persons  in 
those  texts.  So  far  as  they  are  personified,  they  are 
personifications  of  the  attributes  of  Mazdah  himself ;  but 
they  constantly  appear  also  as  attributes  of  the  follower 
of  Mazdah.  Let  us  take  them  up  one  by  one. 

Asha  is  the  personification  of  right-doing;  at  times  the 
word  is  distinctly  not  a  person,  but  means  merely  the 
good  deeds  or  the  righteousness  of  the  man  in  question. 
At  other  times,  Asha  is  so  personified  as  to  be  celebrated 
with  prayer  and  with  offering,  invoked,  praised  and 
worshiped.  It  is  through  Asha  that  Mazdah  makes  his 
revelation  to  Zoroaster,  and  instructs  him  in  the  principles 
of  the  religion  which  he  is  to  proclaim  on  earth;  Asha 
is  the  creation,  even  the  child,  of  Mazdah;  Asha  is  of 
one  will  with  Mazdah;  Asha  gives  help  to  man  against 
the  Evil  Spirit  and  his  followers,  helps  the  righteous  to 
attain  to  blessings,  both  temporal  and  spiritual;  Asha  is 
Mazdah's  chief  assistant  at  the  Last  Judgment.  By  an 
easy  transfer,  Asha  at  times  is  used  as  a  synonym  of  Para- 
dise; once  at  least,  the  name  has  the  meaning  of  its  etymo- 
logical equivalent  in  Sanskrit,  rita,  namely,  cosmic  order. 

196 


ZOROASTRIANISM 

Vohu  Manah  or  Good  Thought,  is  the  personification 
of  right  thinking.  At  times  the  term  means  merely  the 
good  thought  of  the  believers;  sometimes  it  denotes  the 
good  thinkers  or  believers,  as  a  body;  at  other  times, 
Good  Thought,  or  the  abode,  the  dominion,  or  the  bless- 
ings of  Good  Thought,  and  is  a  mere  equivalent  for 
Paradise.  As  a  person,  however,  Good  Thought  runs 
through  almost  the  same  range  of  function  as  Asha, 
with  a  somewhat  less  active  participation  in  them.  Maz- 
dah,  Asha,  and  Good  Thought  are  a  triad  so  constantly 
mentioned  within  the  limits  of  a  single  stanza,  that  they 
form  almost  a  Trinity. 

The  other  Amshaspands  are  much  less  frequently  men- 
tioned. Devotion,  or  Armati,  is  the  daughter  of  Mazdah, 
pleads  with  the  wavering  spirit,  blesses  man  in  this  life 
and  in  the  next ;  but  again  there  is  little  in  these  functions 
to  differentiate  this  archangel  from  the  preceding  two. 
The  name  is  applied  now  to  the  Devotion  of  the  indi- 
vidual, now  to  the  personification  of  that  quality;  and  in 
one  passage  Silent  Thinking  (tushnamati)  seems  to  be 
used  as  a  synonym. 

The  next  three  are  much  less  definitely  personified. 
Sovereignty  or  Dominion  (Khshathra)  means  in  most 
instances  rulership  on  earth,  either  good  or  bad;  but  it 
denotes  also  the  sway  of  the  religion  of  Mazdah,  and 
Paradise.  Its  activity  is  of  a  most  vague  nature.  The 
fifth  and  sixth  of  the  list  are  Welfare  (Harvatat)  and 
Immortality  (Amrtat),  and  are  in  the  Gathas  hardly  per- 
sonified at  all,  except  in  one  passage,  where  they  are  sup- 
plicated to  confer  themselves  as  blessings. 

To  these  six,  which  are  in  fact  somewhat  singled  out 
in  the  Gathas  (though  the  last  two  much  less  distinctly 
so),  there  was  added,  when  the  later  list  of  seven  Amsha- 
spands was  made  up,  the  figure  of  Obedience  (Sraosha), 
which  appears  in  these 'early  texts  as  a  partly  personified 
representation  of  the  act  of  obeying  Mazdah,  and  in  one 

197 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

passage  as  an  Angel  of  Judgment.  The  germs  of  the 
later  doctrines  that  Asha  was  in  special  charge  of  the 
Fire  (sacred  and  profane  alike),  Good  Thought  in  charge 
of  cattle  and  other  useful  animals,  and  Armati  of  the 
earth,  may  be  found  in  the  Gathas,  but  they  have  no 
prominence;  the  provinces  of  the  other  Amshaspands, 
metals  as  belonging  to  Sovereignty,  water  to  Welfare, 
and  plants  to  Immortality,  are  not  hinted  at  in  the  Gathas. 

That  the  personifications  are  still  but  half-complete 
is  seen  in  many  stanzas,  as  in  the  following,  where  Good 
Thought  is  but  the  thinking  of  the  righteous,  and  Piety 
is  coordinated  with  worship  and  zeal,  while  Sovereignty 
is  but  an  attribute  of  Mazdah  (Yasna  49:  10)  :  "And 
this,  O  Mazdah,  I  will  bring  to  thy  house  for  shelter :  the 
Good  Thought  and  the  souls  of  the  righteous,  their  wor- 
ship, their  Piety  and  their  zeal,  O  thou  of  mighty  Sov- 
ereignty, that  thou  mayest  watch  over  them  with  abiding 
power." 

But  again  study  shows  that  there  is  not  in  the  Gathas 
a  closed  band  of  seven  Amshaspands,  to  which  no  others 
might  be  added ;  for  the  following  stanza  ( Yasna  45  :  10) 
not  only  names  all  of  them  except  Obedience,  some  rather 
thinly  personified,  but  uses  the  terms  Strength  (tevishl) 
and  Permanence  (utayuti)  in  a  manner  quite  parallel  to 
•Welfare  and  Immortality: 

"  For  us  thou  (=  the  believer  in  the  true  religion)  shalt 
exalt  with  prayers  of  Devotion  him  who  is  enduringly 
famed  as  Mazdah  Ahura ;  for  through  his  Righteousness 
(Asha)  and  Good  Thought  he  has  taught  that  in  his 
Sovereignty  Welfare  and  Immortality  shall  be  ours,  and 
in  his  house  Strength  and  Permanence  shall  be  ours." 

We  may  observe  that  here,  also,  only  Asha  and  Good 
Thought,  besides  Mazdah,  are  persons,  and  that  a  different 
translation  is  possible,  by  which  even  they  are  but  ab- 
stracts :  "  For  he  has  for  himself  taught  that  for  Right- 
doing  and  for  Good  Thinking,  Welfare  and  Immortality 

198 


ZOROASTRIANISM 

shall  be  ours  in  his  Sovereignty  (=  paradise)  .  .  ."  More 
than  that,  the  word  which  is  rendered  "  enduringly  "  is 
only  an  oblique  case  form  of  a  word  (anmari)  which  in 
another  passage  is  coupled  with  Permanence  in  precisely 
the  manner  in  which  we  here  have  "  Strength  and  Per- 
manence." Similarly,  oblique  cases  of  the  words  for  Per- 
manence and  Immortality  are  used  as  adverbs,  once  in 
close  combination;  and  in  another  pasasge,  Immortality 
(as  an  abstract)  and  Happy  Life  (hujyati)  are  combined 
in  the  same  way  as  the  usual  "  Welfare  and  Immortality." 
Other  concepts  which  might  have  been  promoted  to  the 
dignity  of  archangels,  but  were  not,  are  to  be  found  in 
A  tar,  the  Fire  on  the  altar,  and  Ashi,  the  Lot  assigned 
after  death  as  reward  for  the  deserts  of  life:  these  last 
two  did,  however,  become  in  later  times  angels  of  a  grade 
inferior  to  the  Amshaspands. 

Now  over  against  Mazdah  and  the  seven  Amsha- 
spands we  find  in  the  later  writings  of  the  Avesta  a  set 
of  seven  arch-demons  attending  the  Evil  Spirit ;  but  only 
two  or  three  of  these  appear  in  the  Gathas,  and  they  are 
not  strongly  personified.  Evil  Thought  (Aka  Manah) 
is  the  special  opponent  of  Good  Thought,  and  represents 
the  ideas  which  may  be  deduced  from  the  name.  Violence 
(aeshma)  denotes  the  violence  which  the  nomadic  raiders 
from  the  north  exercised  upon  the  herdsmen  of  Persia, 
and  in  especial  the  cruelty  towards  the  herds  of  cattle, 
which  they  slaughtered  or  drove  off  as  booty ;  Violence  is 
the  particular  opponent  of  Obedience.  Heresy  (taro- 
mati)  is  named  once,  and  is  at  a  later  time  spoken  of  as 
the  opponent  of  Devotion,  though  Devotion's  special 
enemy  is  regularly  Naonghathya  (etymologically  identical 
with  Sanskrit  Nasatya) ;  but  the  two  are  perhaps  to  be 
identified.  Other  ideas  in  the  Gathas  which  might  have 
been  advanced  to  the  position  of  arch-demons  are  Arro- 
gance (parimati),  which  later  became  a  minor  demon, 
and  Disobedience  (asruskti),  which  is  given  in  a  list  with 

199 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

the  Druj,  Evil  Thought,  and  Heresy,  but  receives  no 
additional  prominence  in  later  times. 

To  turn  now  from  the  supernatural  hosts,  Man  was 
created  by  Mazdah  as  an  independent  agent,  endowed 
with  free  will,  and  with  the  power  and  also  the  obliga- 
tion of  making  a  choice  between  the  two  spirits,  the  good 
and  the  evil.  He  should  hear  gladly  the  preaching  of 
Zoroaster  in  his  effort  to  lead  him  to  the  right  way,  and 
on  having  made  the  right  choice  is  designated  as  wise, 
possessed  of  understanding  and  of  insight,  worthy,  faith- 
ful. He  will  practice  good  thoughts,  good  words,  and 
good  deeds;  he  will  please  Mazdah  by  dutiful  actions, 
will  uphold  Righteousness,  cherish  Devotion,  cling  to  the 
hope  of  everlasting  blessedness  in  paradise.  He  will 
offer  worship  to  Mazdah  with  prayers  of  praise  and  of 
entreaty,  and  with  sacrifice.  He  will  avoid  committing 
the  sins  which  the  followers  of  the  Druj  or  Evil  Spirit 
practice;  he  will  even  shun  all  fellowship  with  them, 
and  work  ill  to  them,  smiting  them  with  the  weapon  and 
overcoming  them,  never  seeking  to  propitiate  them  be- 
cause of  some  temporary  exigency,  for  the  triumph  of  the 
righteous  man  is  assured  even  on  earth,  in  this  life,  in 
addition  to  the  reward  of  blessedness  after  death.  In 
only  one  relation  may  he  have  dealings  with  the  followers 
of  the  Druj,  and  that  is  in  an  effort  to  convert  them  to 
the  true  faith;  in  such  missionary  work  he  should  be 
zealous,  and  then  he  should  be  resolute  in  protecting  the 
new  converts  from  the  resentment  of  the  infidels.  Tem- 
poral prosperity,  as  well  as  spiritual,  shall  be  the  posses- 
sion of  the  faithful  believer,  though  there  are  times  of 
trial  and  depression,  as  Zoroaster  well  knew  himself. 

The  follower  of  the  Druj  is  the  direct  opposite  of  the 
'Believer,  in  character  and  in  actions ;  he  is  the  seed  of  the 
Lie,  Evil  Thought  and  Arrogance ;  he  chooses  wrong,  for 
he  hates  the  words  of  Zoroaster ;  he  opposes  the  blessings 
of  Mazdah,  and  scorns  devotion ;  when  in  power,  he  exer- 

200 


ZOROASTRIANISM 

cises  evil  rule,  bringing  misery  and  destruction  to  the 
house,  the  clan,  the  district  and  the  land ;  he  uses  violence, 
seeking  to  slay  Zoroaster  and  the  true  believers,  but  shall 
himself  be  smitten  down  in  this  world,  and  at  the  Last 
Judgment  be  condemned  to  everlasting  punishment. 
There  are  teachers  of  the  Evil  Spirit,  who  destroy  the 
teachings  of  Zoroaster,  and  the  designs  of  life  established 
by  Mazdah,  and  cause  Good  Thinking  to  be  held  in  low 
repute;  and  the  warfare  against  them  is  continually 
\vaged  by  Zoroaster  in  his  missionary  work.  The  posi- 
tive doctrines  of  the  .Drw/'-followers  we  shall  take  up 
presently. 

Before  considering  the  teleology  of  the  Zoroastrian 
religion,  we  may  first  observe  that  there  is  no  provision 
for  the  exposure  of  the  dead  body  to  the  beasts  and  birds, 
which  seems  to  be  a  later  engrafting  on  the  faith.  For 
Zoroaster  says  ( Yasna  30 :  7 ;  I  paraphrase  slightly,  to 
secure  clearness)  :  "  And  to  man  Sovereignty  came,  and 
Good  Thought  and  Asha  (Right) ;  and  Devotion  gave 
to  his  body  permanence  and  duration,  that  at  the  Last 
Judgment  he  may  be  first  of  all."  In  this  we  have  an 
allusion  to  persistence  of  the  physical  body  after  death 
until  the  day  of  judgment,  which  is  quite  incompatible 
with  the  later  practice;  and  as  the  archangel  Devotion, 
who  confers  permanence  upon  the  body,  is  that  archangel 
in  special  charge  of  the  earth,  we  must  infer  that  the 
original  Zoroastrian  practice  was  that  of  burial,  and  that 
therefore  the  doctrine  of  pollution  by  contact  with  dead 
bodies  was  not  taught  by  Zoroaster ;  or  else  that  the  earth 
was  immune  to  such  contamination  by  the  contact — unless 
indeed  the  holiness  of  earth  is  a  later  development  in 
the  religion. 

But  after  death  the  souls  of  the  dead  pass  on  to  the 
place  of  the  great  judgment,  when  Mazdah,  attended  by 
Asha,  Good  Thought,  and  Sovereignty,  are  waiting  to 
pronounce  the  sentence  of  bliss  or  torment.  Here  is  the 

201 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

treasure-house  in  which  all  the  good  thoughts,  words,  and 
deeds — for  this  triad  is  constantly  insisted  on — have  been 
stored  up  against  this  day;  we  must  assume  that  the  evil 
also  has  been  stored  up,  for  the  two  are  placed  in  a 
balance,  and  that  which  is  heavier  decides  the  fate  of 
the  soul.  Yet  if  there  is  a  perfect  balance  between  the 
two,  the  soul  goes  to  a  third  place,  neither  heaven  nor 
hell,  reserved  for  those  whose  perfect  equality  of  good 
and  bad  in  this  earthly  life  puts  them  in  a  position  of 
neutrality  in  the  contest  of  right  and  wrong.  At  this 
weighing,  Zoroaster  is  present  as  the  advocate  of  the 
faithful,  that  none  of  their  merits  may  be  forgotten;  some 
passages  seem  even  to  place  him  in  the  position  of  the 
Judge,  instead  of  Mazdah.  Then  the  Judge,  with  a  point- 
ing of  the  hand,  indicates  the  destiny  of  the  soul.  Next 
comes  the  crossing  of  the  Bridge  of  the  Separator:  the 
righteous  find  it  easy  to  traverse,  and  arrive  on  the  other 
side  at  Paradise;  but  the  evil  find  it  growing  narrower 
and  narrower,  until  at  last  they  fall  off  into  hell  below, 
where  they  are  to  subsist  upon  evil  food,  and  to  undergo 
everlasting  torment. 

It  cannot  be  too  strongly  insisted  upon  that  the  in- 
evitability of  the  reward  for  good  and  bad  is  a  dominant 
feature  of  Zoroaster's  teaching;  it  appears  throughout  the 
Gathas.  The  awful  punishment  of  the  bad  is  kept  con- 
tinually before  the  mind  of  his  auditor,  that  terror  may 
be  one  influence  toward  conversion ;  yet  there  are  also  for 
the  believer  the  promises  of  blessedness  in  the  next  life, 
and  of  prosperity  on  earth,  as  well  as  the  desirability  of 
doing  right  deeds  for  their  own  sake.  Further,  though 
there  is  this  personal  judgment  on  the  individual  after 
death,  there  is  a  constant  looking  forward  to  the  day 
when  the  world  will  be  cleansed  of  sin ;  this  will  accom- 
plish the  final  defeat  and  subjection  of  the  Evil  Spirit, 
when  he  no  longer  has  followers.  At  this  time,  all  souls 
will  pass  through  a  flood  of  molten  metal,  which  will 

202 


ZOROASTRIANISM 

seem  a  bath  of  pleasant  warmth  to  the  righteous,  but  will 
either  destroy  or  purge  of  evil  the  souls  of  the  wicked: 
Zoroaster  does  not  make  the  point  clear.  Thus  the  re- 
generation of  the  world  should  come ;  and  to  this  process 
Zoroaster  termed  himself  a  Saoshyant,  or  future  deliverer, 
almost  Saviour,  and  he  bestowed  this  title  on  those  who 
were  already  or  should  later  become  active  in  the  process. 
In  fact,  the  prophet  expected  this  millennium  to  come 
soon,  even  in  his  lifetime;  but  when  such  did  not  take 
place,  later  Zoroastrianism  interpreted  these  deliverers, 
of  whom  Zoroaster  spoke,  as  miraculously  born  sons  of 
the  Prophet,  the  last  of  whom  will  bring  about  the 
regeneration. 

Now  what  are  the  good  deeds  which  are  enjoined 
upon  the  faithful  follower  of  Mazdah,  according  to  the 
preaching  of  his  prophet?  They  are  the  care  and  the 
protection  of  the  herds  of  cattle :  in  other  words,  Zoro- 
aster preached  a  religion  for  a  community  of  herdsmen, 
whose  prosperity  depended  upon  the  welfare  of  the  herds. 
Later  Avestan  writings  include  with  cattle-tending  the 
culture  of  the  fields,  and  enjoin  upon  the  faithful  works 
of  irrigation  and  the  slaying  of  noxious  beasts — crea- 
tions of  the  Evil  Spirit — that  would  injure  the  crops; 
but  in  the  Gathas  there  is  no  trace  of  the  precepts  on 
agriculture.  Zoroaster's  own  preachings,  so  far  as  his 
extant  sermons  indicate,  were  for  a  pastoral  people  pure 
and  simple,  not  for  one  that  had  advanced  to  the  stage 
combining  agriculture  with  cattle-tending.  The  impor- 
tance of  these  instructions  to  care  for  the  herds  may  be 
seen  in  the  attitude  taken  by  the  followers  of  the  Evil 
Spirit;  they  are  foes  of  cattle-nurture,  desolating  the 
pasture  lands,  and  doing  violence  to  the  cow,  whose  life 
they  take  with  joy.  This  violence  is  personified  as  the 
archdemon  who  is  the  especial  enemy  of  the  archangel 
Obedience,  a  matter  already  mentioned.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  follower  of  Right  diligently  cares  for  the  Cow ; 

203 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

the  archangel  Good  Thought  is  the  patron  of  cattle,  and 
Devotion,  whose  special  province  is  the  earth,  cares  for 
the  pasture  lands.  Plants  were  created  by  Mazdah  to  be 
the  food  of  the  cattle.  Zoroaster  prays  to  Mazdah  that 
the  husbandman  may  receive  increased  skill  in  his  care 
for  the  herds.  In  return,  the  herds  furnish  men  with 
meat  and  with  milk  (Yasna,  29:  7). 

Somewhat  contradictory  to  this  is  the  interesting  hint 
at  a  story  of  the  Fall  of  Man  ( Yasna  32 :  8)  :  Yima,  son 
of  Vivahvant,  in  a  desire  to  gratify  men,  gave  them  the 
flesh  of  the  Cow  to  eat.  This  he  did  with  the  idea  that 
the  food  would  confer  immortal  life  upon  his  subjects; 
but  he  had  been  deceived  into  this  false  belief  by  the 
demons  of  the  Evil  Spirit,  who  wished  men  to  follow 
the  evil  course.  Thereby  sin  became  rife  among  men, 
not  wholly  because  of  the  violence  to  the  cattle  in  order 
to  get  the  flesh  for  eating,  but  because  of  the  attempt  to 
seek  immortality  in  a  wrongful  way.  The  preachings 
of  Zoroaster,  we  must  remember,  distinctly  permit  the 
use  of  flesh  of  the  Cow  as  food,  as  well  as  that  of  the  milk. 

For  these  reasons,  the  Cow,  and  more  especially  the 
Cow  with  calf,  became  in  the  language  of  Zoroaster  a 
symbol  of  prosperity  in  this  earthly  life,  and  by  an  easy 
extension  of  meaning,  the  symbol  of  blessedness  in  the 
life  after  death;  paradise  is  spoken  of  as  "happy  dwell- 
ings rich  with  pasture."  The  same  figure  is  illustrated 
again  when  he  says  that  the  righteous  man  shall  hereafter 
dwell  in  the  pasture  of  Right  and  Good  Thought,  and 
in  a  time  of  despondency  he  says,  "  I  know,  O  Mazdah, 
why  I  am  powerless;  it  is  because  few  cattle  are  mine, 
and  few  men." 

Now  the  establishment  of  a  religion  for  herdsmen 
is  represented  in  this  manner  (Yasna,  29)  :  The  Cow  is 
like  man,  endowed  with  the  power  of  making  a  free 
choice  between  good  and  evil;  for  her  the  choice  is  be- 
tween the  herdsman  and  the  raider.  She  chooses  the 

204 


ZOROASTRIANISM 

herdsman.  In  distress  from  the  raids  of  the  barbarians, 
the  personified  Spirit  of  the  Kine  comes  before  the  Creator 
of  the  Kine.  an  aspect  of  Mazdah  and  yet  not  identical 
with  Mazdah,  and  asks  for  a  protector  against  the  op- 
pressors. The  Creator  of  the  Kine  appeals  to  Asha  to 
know  if  there  is  a  judge  and  lord  who  may  tend  the 
kine,  provide  them  with  fodder,  and  drive  off  the  violence 
of  the  followers  of  the  Evil  Spirit.  Asha  replies  that 
there  is  none,  and  refers  the  Kine-Creator  to  Mazdah 
himself  for  help.  At  the  appeal,  Mazdah  appoints  Zoro- 
aster to  reveal  his  will  and  to  serve  as  lord  and  judge 
over  the  herds.  But  the  Kine-Spirit  utters  a  sad  lament 
that  a  weakling  man  should  be  set  in  a  position  demanding 
power,  and  fears  that  Zoroaster's  help  will  not  be  effect- 
ual. Hereupon  Zoroaster  prays  humbly  to  Mazdah  for 
strength  to  execute  his  mission ;  and  the  Kine-Spirit,  im- 
pressed by  the  evident  sincerity  of  his  prayer,  expresses 
confidence  that  effectual  help  will  now  come  to  the  herds. 
Such  is,  in  summary  form,  Zoroaster's  own  account  of 
his  appointment  as  missioner  of  a  herdmen's  religion. 

An  interesting  point  about  the  Zoroastrian  faith  is 
that  the  word  for  demon,  daeva,  is  the  word  which  in 
most  kindred  languages  designates  a  deity  of  good  char- 
acter. This  has  occasioned  much  discussion,  the  more 
so  because  the  word  for  a  good  divinity  in  the  Avesta 
is  Ahura,  while  the  same  word  etymologically  in  Sanskrit, 
Asura,  denotes  a  demon.  The  latter  point  is  of  no  con- 
sequence, for  the  Sanskrit  word  has  independently 
acquired  a  bad  meaning;  the  difficulty  lies  with  the  former 
word.  We  might  inquire  first,  in  this  connection,  what 
we  can  glean  about  the  religion  of  the  Persians  before 
the  coming  of  Zoroaster.  The  Gathas  give  us  but  a  few 
points  (Yasna  32 :  12,  14;  48:  10) ;  they  hint  at  orgies  in 
which  the  life  of  the  Cow  is  slain,  and  the  haoma  or  fer- 
mented juice  of  some  plant  is  used.  The  haoma  is  not 
indeed  mentioned  by  name  in  the  Gathas,  but  the  allusions 

205 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

are  unmistakable.  One  passage  represents  the  followers 
of  the  false  religion  as  saying,  "  Slay  the  Cow,  that  it 
may  inspire  the  Death-Averter  to  help  us."  As  Death- 
Averter  (duraosha)  is  a  constant  epithet  of  the  haoma 
in  the  later  portions  of  the  Avesta,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  use  of  the  haoma  belongs  to  the  religious  rites 
which  Zoroaster  assails.  Again,  there  can  be  no  question 
of  the  meaning  when  he  appeals  to  Mazdah  to  "  smite 
the  filth  of  the  intoxicant,  with  which  the  false  religion- 
ists evilly  deceive."  The  slaying  of  the  Cow  in  the  orgies 
of  this  religion  may  perhaps  point  to  some  practice  like 
the  slaying  of  the  bull  in  the  rites  of  Mithra;  but  the 
indications  are  too  scant  for  certainty.  Yet  we  know 
that  the  deities  Mithra  and  Anahita  do  not  appear  in 
Zoroaster's  own  teaching,  but  become  prominent  in  the 
later  Avesta;  which  unfortunately  gives  us  no  clue  as 
to  the  date.  The  two  are,  however,  given  a  place  along- 
side Ahuramazda  in  the  inscriptions  of  Artaxerxes  I, 
who  ruled  the  Persian  Empire  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth 
century  before  Christ,  where  the  three  are  a  formal  triad; 
but  the  added  two  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  inscriptions 
of  Xerxes,  father  of  Artaxerxes,  who  celebrates  Ahura- 
mazda alone.  This  is  important  for  our  understanding 
of  the  development  of  Zoroastrianism.  I  have  earlier 
stated  that  the  ceremony  with  the  haoma  or  horn-juice  is 
the  most  evident  portion  of  the  Parsi  ritual  of  to-day, 
as  in  fact  it  was  in  the  time  of  the  later  sections  of  the 
Avesta;  and  as  Zoroaster  himself  denounced  its  use  in 
the  strong  terms  which  have  been  quoted,  the  use  of 
the  haoma  was,  like  Mithra  and  Anahita,  an  importation 
into  the  new  religion  from  the  older  and  supplanted  faith, 
which  though  defeated  must  still  have  kept  a  powerful 
hold  on  the  individual  mind.  To  this  older  faith  may  with 
plausibility  be  ascribed  also  the  institution  of  the  Towers 
of  Silence  for  the  disposal  of  the  bodies  of  the  dead. 
Indeed,  it  is  quite  likely  that  the  priests  of  the  older 

206 


ZOROASTRIANISM 

religion,  when  definitely  defeated  in  the  struggle,  accepted 
the  situation,  and  bent  their  energies  towards  getting 
control  of  the  priesthood  of  the  new  faith.  That  a  class 
of  men  trained  in  the  practice  of  ceremonies  should  have 
achieved  their  purpose  is  not  astonishing,  and  we  may 
well  believe  that  they  then  shaped  the  new  religion  by 
importing  some  of  the  old  practices  which  its  founder 
had  condemned.  And  this  brings  us  back  to  the  problem 
of  the  meaning  of  daeva,  "demon"  in  Persian,  but  "kindly 
deity  "  in  other  languages.  If  we  grant  such  a  religion 
as  we  find  hints  of  in  the  Gathas,  a  religion  having  at 
its  head,  presumably,  the  old  nature  gods,  whose  name 
was  daeva  in  Persian,  Zoroaster  might  fitly  use  their  name 
with  abhorrence,  and  degrade  it  to  the  meaning  of  demon. 
His  own  religion  had  personifications  of  abstractions  at 
its  head ;  the  very  word  daeva,  being  connected  with  the 
word  meaning  sky,  with  Jupiter,  Zeus,  and  the  like,  was 
not  suitable  to  express  his  idea  o-f  a  supernatural  being, 
but  was  the  very  word  to  denote  a  false  deity,  evil  and 
maleficent.  This  word,  then,  remains  as  a  memorial  of 
the  fight  waged  by  Zoroaster  against  the  older  religion; 
but  many  of  the  features  of  that  older  religion  crept  into 
the  new  faith  in  later  times,  as  we  have  just  seen. 

THE  PROPHET  ZOROASTER. 

And  what  of  Zoroaster  himself?  Must  he  remain  a 
vague  personality,  surrounded  by  the  myths  attached  to 
him  in  the  later  writings  of  the  religion  which  he  founded  ? 
Or  can  we  learn  something  of  his  life  and  of  his  experi- 
ences, out  of  his  own  words?  A  certain  amount  we  do 
find  there,  but  not  enough  to  give  more  than  a  sketch; 
yet  ample  for  a  glimpse  at  the  vigorous  manhood,  the 
trying  career,  the  militant  ministry  of  the  prophet. 

Zarathushtra,  as  his  name  was  originally,  was  of  the 
Spitama  family,  and  was  a  descendant  of  one  Haecathaspa. 
His  mission  to  the  world  came  to  him  in  the  form  of  a 

207  ; 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

series  of  seven  visions.  The  first  was  one  of  Mazdah  at 
the  Last  Judgment;  the  second  that  of  Mazdah  at  the 
Creation.  The  other  five  were  of  the  archangel  Good 
Thought,  who  asked  him  whether  he  belonged  to  the  evil 
or  to  the  good,  and  for  which  party  he  would  decide; 
who  in  the  next  vision  instructed  Zoroaster  in  the  words 
of  Mazdah;  who  then  came  to  Zoroaster  to  observe  his 
zeal  for  the  right,  and  in  the  last  vision  to  send  him  out 
upon  his  preaching.  Thus  ordained  by  Mazdah,  he  be- 
gan his  mission,  proclaiming  his  appointment  as  protector 
of  the  herdsmen  and  of  the  cattle,  and  announcing  the 
certainty  of  reward  in  the  next  life,  for  the  good  and 
the  evil  done  in  this  bodily  life.  It  was  no  easy  task:  in 
his  endeavor  to  proselyte  the  world  he  incurred  the  hos- 
tility of  the  former  religion,  its  priests  the  Karapans  and 
the  Usij,  and  its  chieftains  the  Kavis.  Foremost  of  his 
opponents  were  the  priest  Grehma  and  the  chief  Bendva. 
Often  his  life  was  sought;  but  Mazdah  protected  him. 
Often  the  Prophet  was  plunged  into  the  deepest  discour- 
agement. Once  he  says  ( Yasna>,  46 :  i ) ,  "  Whither,  to 
what  land,  shall  I  go  to  escape?  They  keep  me  from 
the  noble  and  from  the  priest,  nor  do  the  traders  please 
me,  nor  the  princes  of  the  land,  who  follow  the  Druj. 
How  shall  I  please  thee,  Mazdah  Ahura  ?  "  Even  specific 
occurrences  find  mention  in  his  sermons :  once  ( Yasna 
44:  18)  he  had  been  promised  a  reward  of  ten  mares, 
a  stallion,  and  a  camel — a  bounty  in  keeping  with  a  pas- 
toral civilization — and  had  failed  to  receive  it;  he 
threatens  the  unnamed  breaker  of  his  word  with  the 
penalty  that  comes  for  such  misconduct.  Again  ( Yasna 
51:  12),  he  instances  the  action  of  the  favorite  youth 
of  a  hostile  chief  or  Kavi,  who  kept  him  and  his  two 
horses  out  shivering  in  the  bitter  cold,  not  allowing  them 
to  come  in  for  refuge;  even  the  place  is  named,  the 
iWinter  Gate.  But  still  the  prophet  persisted  in  his  ser- 
vice of  Mazdah,  with  prayer  and  praise  and  preaching, 

208 


ZOROASTRIANISM 

proselyting  and  watching  over  the  souls  of  men,  and,  in 
his  own  words,  "  presenting  to  Mazdah  the  life  of  his  own 
body  as  an  offering."  Always  thinking  that  the  regenera- 
tion of  the  world  would  come  soon,  even  within  his  life- 
time, he  asks  that  as  a  visible  sign  of  Mazdah's  power 
there  be  given  to  him  at  once  the  conversion  of  the  world 
and  the  coming  of  the  millennium ;  but  this,  alas,  he  was 
not  to  see.  Until  that  time,  he  is  the  custodian  of  the 
good  deeds  of  men,  and  at  the  Last  Judgment  he  will 
present  the  faithful  to  the  Judges,  and  will  plead  their 
cause;  sometimes  he  even  pictures  himself  as  the  judge, 
but  that  post  he  usually  reserves  for  Mazdah. 

In  course  of  time  he  won  converts,  ultimately  in  no 
small  number.  Amongst  these  he  mentions  a  kinsman, 
Madyoimaongha,  whom  later  tradition  represents  as  the 
first  convert  of  all ;  and  the  Kavi  or  chief  Vishtaspa  and 
members  of  his  court.  The  conversion  of  the  chief  was 
the  turning  point  of  his  career,  and  may  justly  be  termed 
his  great  success.  Jamaspa,  prime  minister  of  Vishtaspa, 
accepted  the  faith,  and  received  in  marriage  Porucista, 
daughter  of  the  Prophet.  Frashaoshtra,  brother  of  Ja- 
maspa, gave  to  the  Prophet  his  daughter  as  wife;  not  his 
first  wife  certainly,  for  Zoroaster  speaks  of  a  son  and 
of  daughters,  one  of  whom,  as  we  have  just  seen,  was 
of  marriageable  age.  Besides  these,  he  mentions  as  con- 
verts the  family  of  Fryana,  a  Turanian,  one  of  the  bar- 
barian tribes  to  the  north  who  were  afterwards  the  arch- 
enemies of  the  faith;  a  precious  bit  of  evidence  that 
Zoroaster  did  not  limit  his  religion  to  any  one  people. 

Such  is  the  picture  of  the  Prophet  which  we  get  in  the 
Gathas,  the  poetical  sermons  which  have  come  down  from 
him  to  the  present  day,  giving  the  impression  of  a  vivid 
personality,  and  preaching  the  doctrines  of  a  religion 
destined  for  a  nation  of  herdsmen,  who  must  deal  justly 
and  forcefully  to  preserve  themselves  and  their  flocks 
from  the  enemy,  both  temporal  and  spiritual.  To  the 
14  209 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

later  alterations  and  perversions  of  the  faith,  it  has  been 
impossible  here  to  give  more  than  a  passing  allusion. 
But  let  us  remember  that  in  its  inception  the  religion  of 
Zoroaster  was  one  designed  to  meet  a  situation  which 
was  mainly  economic,  but  that  this  religion  had  at  its  head 
a  series  of  personifications  of  noble  abstractions. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

J.  B.  PRATT:  India  and  its  Faiths,  1915,  pp.  318-39,  on  present-day 
aspects  of  Parsiism. 

A.  V.  W.  JACKSON  :  Zoroaster  the  Prophet  of  Ancient  Iran,  1899, 
for  the  life  of  Zoroaster  as  portrayed  in  the  ancient  sources. 

K.  GELDNER:  articles  "Zoroaster,"  for  the  life  of  the  Prophet,  and 
"  Zendavesta,"  for  the  contents  and  history  of  the  Avesta,  in  the 
Encyclopedia  Britannica,  ed.  11,  vol.  28. 

DOSHABHAI  FRAMJI  KARAKA  :  History  of  the  Parsis,  2  vols.,  1884, 
for  the  subject  from  the  Parsi  standpoint. 

A.  V.  W.  JACKSON:  An  Avestan  Grammar,  1892:  the  introduction 
contains  a  convenient  account  of  the  contents,  history,  and  inter- 
pretation of  the  Avesta. 

A.  V.  W.  JACKSON  :  "  Die  iranische  Religion,"  in  Geiger  and  Kuhn's 
Grundriss  der  iranischen  Philologie,  vol.  2,  1896-1904;  a  com- 
plete picture  of  the  religion  as  seen  in  the  Avestan  and  Pahlavi 
sources. 

J.  H.  MOULTON:  Early  Zoroastrianisni,  1913,  a  most  valuable  study 
of  the  earlier  aspects  of  the  faith,  with  copious  citations  of 
sources  and  of  modern  authorities,  and  a  translation  of  the 
ancient  sources,  including  the  most  recent  and  best  translation 
of  the  Gathas  into  English. 

Older  translations  of  the  Avesta  are  in  the  Sacred  Books  of  the 
East,  vols.  4  (1880)  and  23  (1883),  by  J.  Darmesteter,  and  vol. 
31  (1887),  by  L.  H.  Mills;  into  French,  by  J.  Darmesteter,  Le 
Zendavesta,  3  vols.,  i892-<)3 ;  into  German,  by  Chr.  Bartholomae, 
Die  Gatha*s  der  Awesta,  1905,  and  by  Fritz  Wolff,  Avesta,  die 
heiligen  Biicher  der  Parsen,  1910  (except  the  Gathas). 


210 


CHAPTER  IX 

MOHAMMEDANISM 

BY  MORRIS  JASTROW,  JR. 


MOHAMMEDANISM  or  Islam  is  ushered  into  existence 
in  the  full  daylight  of  history.  Despite  this  fact  we 
know  only  little  more  of  its  founder,  Mohammed,  that 
is  authentic  than  we  know  of  Jesus  and  not  as  much 
as  we  know  of  Buddha.  To  be  sure,  the  pious  Moham- 
medan will  resent  this  assertion,  and  claim  that  we  have 
the  details  of  the  prophet's  career  down  to  the  most 
trivial  incidents,  handed  down  by  reliable  witnesses  and 
embodied  in  an  extensive  literature  known  as  Hadith,  i.e., 
"  tradition."  Alas !  that  this  "  tradition  "  about  Moham- 
med breaks  down  under  the  test  of  critical  examination, 
and  the  reported  doings  and  sayings  of  the  prophet  turn 
out  to  b^  for  the  larger  part  inventions  to  reinforce  ortho- 
dox beliefs  and  minutiae  in  religious  practices.1  The 
generation  which  knew  Mohammed  was  devoid  of  the 
historic  sense  and  left  no  record  of  his  doings  and  sayings 
except  the  one  which  is  furnished  in  the  imperfect  col- 
lection of  his  sporadic  utterances  known  as  the  Koran. 
Through  the  Koran  we  can  penetrate  into  the  psychology 
of  the  prophet's  intricate  personality,  but  it  does  not 
suffice  for  tracing  his  career  in  detail.  Out  of  the  mass 
of  late  and  untrustworthy  traditions,  we  can  supplement 
the  Koran  by  some  details — but  only  enough  to  sketch 
his  life  in  general  outlines. 

He  was  born  of  humble  parentage  in  Mecca  and  in  all 
probability  in  the  year  570  A.D.  There  is  an  isolated 

1  See  Goldziher's  elaborate  study  of  the  Hadith  Literature  in  his 
Muhammedanische  Studien,  2,  pp.  1-274. 

2X1 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

tradition  that  his  real  name  was  Kutam.  Mohammed  (or 
better  Muhammad,  "  the  praised  one  "  or  "  blessed  ")  ap- 
pears to  be  an  epithet  given  to  him.  His  father's  name 
was  Abdallah  (servant  of  Allah),  though  the  second  ele- 
ment may  have  been  a  substitute  for  the  name  of  some 
Arab  god;  and  his  mother  is  said  to  have  been  Amina 
("  the  faithful  one  ").  At  a  tender  age  Mohammed  was 
left  an  orphan,  the  care  of  whom  devolved  first  on  his 
grandfather,  Abd  el-Muttalib,  and  after  the  death  of  the 
latter  upon  his  maternal  uncle,  Abu  Talib.  Of  his  early 
years  we  know  nothing  till  as  a  young  man  he  entered  the 
services  of  a  rich  widow,  Khadijah,  and  as  her  agent  en- 
tered upon  mercantile  pursuits.  He  subsequently  mar- 
ried the  widow,  though  she  was  considerably  older,  and 
had  a  large  family — three  sons  and  four  daughters.  The 
sons  appear  to  have  died  before  reaching  manhood. 

We  next  hear  of  him  as  a  preacher,  exhorting  the 
people  of  Mecca  to  cast  aside  the  traditional  worship  of 
gods  and  to  recognize  Allah  alone  as  the  one  god  of  the 
universe.  This,  the  burden  of  his  message,  is  repeated 
in  many  keys  and  in  endless  variations  throughout  his 
public  career.  "  There  is  no  god  but  Allah  "  becomes  the 
inspiration  of  his  life,  while  the  corollary  "  Mohammed 
is  the  messenger  of  Allah  "  merely  emphasizes  his  posi- 
tion as  the  mouthpiece  of  Allah,  sent  to  proclaim  him  to 
his  own  people,  as  at  other  times  messengers  had  been 
sent  to  other  peoples — notably  to  Jews  and  Christians. 
He  appears  to  have  been  about  40  years  old  when  he 
first  made  his  public  appearance.  The  twenty-two  years 
of  his  career  as  a  "  warner,"  as  he  likes  to  call  himself, 
are  divided  into  two  almost  equal  periods.  The  first 
twelve  are  spent  in  Mecca,  where  he  succeeds  in  gather- 
ing a  small  circle  of  followers  about  him,  but  also  arouses 
considerable  opposition  by  his  denunciation  of  estab- 
lished customs.  This  opposition,  as  well  as  brighter  pros- 
pects of  meeting  with  success  elsewhere,  prompts  him  to 

212 


MOHAMMEDANISM 

leave  Mecca  for  Medina  in  the  year  622-~-an  event  desig- 
nated as  the  Hejira,  i.e.,  "  the  flight,"  from  which  the 
Mohammedans  date  their  official  era.  In  Medina,  situated 
some  distance  to  the  north  of  Mecca,  he  attracts  great 
attention.  His  followers  increase,  and  combining  in  a 
strange  manner  worldly  ambitions  with  missionary  zeal 
he  acquires  an  influential  position  which  in  time  makes 
him  the  virtual  ruler  of  the  place.  We  may  trust  the 
tradition  which  depicts  him  as  the  prophet  militant  in 
Medina,  organizing  marauding  bands  and  dividing  the 
booty  derived  from  attacking  caravans  among  his  sol- 
diery. He  occasionally  meets  with  reverses,  but  on  the 
whole  gains  in  power  until  he  feels  strong  enough  to 
make  an  attack  on  Mecca.  He  enters  the  city  in  triumph 
and  proceeds  with  his  followers  to  the  ancient  sanctuary 
in  the  city,  known  as  the  Caaba  (from  its  "  cube  "-like 
shape),  and  proclaims  it  as  the  "  house  of  Allah."  It  be- 
comes from  this  time  on  the  central  sanctuary  of  Moham- 
medanism. 

In  the  closing  years  of  Mohammed's  career  the 
religious  movement  inaugurated  by  him  begins  to  assume 
the  dimensions  of  a  national  uprising.  The  Arabic  tribes 
scattered  throughout  the  Peninsula  become  conscious  of 
their  unity.  Mohammed  as  the  prophet  proclaiming  a 
divine  message  to  the  Arabic  people  gives  to  the  many 
separate  groups  a  rallying  cry  that  unites  them  under  the 
standard  of  Islam.  He  fires  their  ambition  of  bringing 
the  whole  world  to  a  recognition  of  Allah.  Before  Mo- 
hammed passed  away  at  Medina  in  the  year  632,  at  the 
age  of  sixty-two,  practically  all  of  Arabia  had  come  under 
his  control.  He  gathers  able  lieutenants  about  him  who 
aid  in  the  work  of  the  organization  of  the  Arabs  into  a 
great  military  camp,  though  the  work  is  not  perfected  till 
after  his  death. 

Mohammed's  mission  thus  takes  on  a  two-fold  aspect 
— religious  and  political.  The  time  was  ripe  as  a  result 

213 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

of  the  disintegration  of  the  old  faith  for  a  forward  step, 
involving  the  recognition  of  unity  in  the  universe  in  place 
of  a  diversity  of  more  or  less  independent  powers.  The 
presence  of  Jews  and  Christians  in  large  numbers  in  vari- 
ous parts  of  Arabia  was  an  important  factor  in  leading 
to  the  decline  of  Arabic  heathendom.  Mohammed  no 
doubt  came  into  contact  with  Jews  and  Christians,  from 
whom  he  acquired  an  imperfect  knowledge  of  these  higher 
faiths,  together  with  smatterings  of  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment stories,  though  in  their  Midrashic  rather  than  in 
their  Biblical  garb.  The  Jews,  more  particularly,  had 
amplified  the  Biblical  tales  of  the  Patriarchs  and  of  such 
figures  as  Moses  and  Aaron  with  fanciful  accretions, 
spun  out  with  homiletic  intent.  Mohammed  accepted 
these  tales  with  little  appreciation  of  their  deeper  import, 
just  as  the  Christian  doctrines  of  the  Trinity  and  of  the 
Pauline  conception  of  Jesus  lay  beyond  his  mental  hori- 
zon. The  attempt  to  assimilate  what  he  could  not  under- 
stand led  to  a  frightful  confusion  and  to  most  crude  in- 
terpretations of  both  Judaism  and  Christianity,  though, 
in  so  far  as  these  faiths  followed  along  the  lines  of 
Semitic  thought,  they  appealed  to  his  mental  make-up 
and  gave  him  much  of  what  was  valuable  in  his  religious 
message.  It  is  more  difficult  to  account  for  the  political 
union  of  the  Arabs  which  Mohammed  succeeded  in  bring- 
ing about.  No  doubt  the  hope  of  plunder  and  the  ambi- 
tion of  conquest  were  aroused  by  him,  but  as  one  of  those 
rare  individuals,  born  to  leadership,  he  must  also  have 
stirred  up  feelings  of  a  higher  order  that  had  lain  dormant 
among  the  Arabs.  Stirred  to  the  depths,  the  Arabs  be- 
came an  irresistible  force,  carrying  the  new  faith  with  the 
help  of  the  sword  to  Persia  on  the  east,  to  Palestine, 
Syria,  Asia  Minor,  Egypt  on  the  west.  Northern  Africa 
and  southern  Spain  as  well  as  Sicily  became  Mohammedan 
states,  and  although  a  definite  limit  was  set  to  further 
northern  expansion  by  the  victory  of  Charles  Martel  at 

214 


MOHAMMEDANISM 

Tours  in  732,  Mohammedanism  within  the  conquered  dis- 
tricts not  only  maintained  its  hold  but  spread  northward 
throughout  Africa  and  eastward  to  India,  to  China  and  to 
the  islands  of  the  Malay  Archipelago,  as  well  as  through- 
out the  section  of  Europe  that  became  part  of  the  Turkish 
Empire  at  its  height.  To  this  day,  Mohammedanism, 
though  split  up  into  large  divisions  and  various  sects, 
retains  its  hold  upon  more  than  two  hundred  millions. 

II 

How  are  we  to  account  for  Mohammed,  how  explain 
the  profound  impression  made  upon  his  surroundings  by 
one  who  as  he  himself  admits — and  as  the  Koran  shows — 
was  an  ignorant  man?  Without  position  to  enforce  his' 
authority,  without  a  powerful  clique  to  aid  him  in  his 
mission,  without  a  John  the  Baptist  as  his  forerunner, 
without  a  Paul  to  formulate  his  doctrine  into  an  elaborate 
theological  system,  though  that  was  eventually  done  by 
Mohammedan  theologians  and  philosophers,  Mohammed 
stands  forth  a  solitary  figure,  crying  to  unwilling  ears, 
derided  at  first,  denounced  as  a  madman,  subject  to  per- 
secution, and  yet  destined  to  triumph  in  a  manner  that 
makes  him  still  almost  1300  years  after  his  death  the  cen- 
tral figure  of  Islam.  Here,  indeed,  is  a  problem  for  the 
psychologist,  the  historian  and  the  student  of  religions  to 
grapple  with. 

Until  a  century  ago,  to  be  sure,  the  problem  did  not 
exist.  The  prejudices  of  Christian  Europe,  reinforced 
by  ignorance,  had  made  of  Mohammed  a  strange  mixture 
of  a  cunning  fanatic  and  a  cruel,  almost  bestial  tyrant, 
with  scarcely  a  redeeming  feature,  unless  it  were  his  suc- 
cess in  imposing  pernicious  teachings  upon  benighted 
masses. 

It  was  left  for  Carlyle  to  see  with  his  keen  psychologi- 
cal insight  that  the  picture  drawn  by  European  writers 
could  not  be  true.  As  a  historical  portrait,  Carlyle's 

215 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

essay  on  Mohammed  in  his  "Heroes  and  Hero  Wor- 
ship," depicting  Mohammed  as  the  Priest-Hero,  has  at  the 
present  time  little  value.  It  has  been  superseded  by  the 
active  researches  of  able  European  and  American  scholars 
and  by  the  publication  of  native  Arabic  sources  for  the 
study  of  Mohammedanism  which  when  Carlyle  wrote 
were  unknown.  As  a  study,  however,  of  the  problem  pre- 
sented by  the  appearance  of  Mohammed  in  surroundings 
where  one  would  least  have  expected  him,  Carlyle  is  most 
suggestive  and  still  worth  reading. 

In  the  seventh  century  of  our  era,  Arabia  was  still 
the  centre  of  Semitic  hordes  as  it  had  been  from  time 
immemorial,  though  settlements  of  Arabs  had  been  made 
throughout  Palestine  and  Syria,  in  Egypt  and  Meso- 
potamia. Despite  the  strong  cultural  influences  emanating 
from  these  lands,  to  which  must  be  added  southern 
Arabia,  where  a  high  order  of  civilization  was  reached 
as  early  as  the  second  millennium  before  this  era,  the  bulk 
of  the  Arabs  had  kept  to  the  nomadic  life;  and  even  in 
the  settlements  within  Arabia  where,  along  the  route 
leading  from  Syria  to  Yemen,  cities  had  sprung  up,  the 
old  animistic  beliefs,  investing  trees,  wells  and  stones 
with  sanctity,  still  held  sway.  The  sacred  sites  to  which 
visits  continued  to  be  paid  remained  the  same,  except 
that  at  those  which  had  acquired  a  prominence  above  the 
average  the  simple  habitat  of  the  guardian  of  the  site  had 
become  a  shrine  of  larger  proportions.  There  was  no 
central  sanctuary,  as  there  was  no  union  among  the  tribes. 
Mecca  in  the  days  of  Mohammed  was  merely  one  of  sev- 
eral prominent  towns  that  had  a  sanctuary  of  more  than 
local  importance — due  in  the  case  of  Mecca  in  part  to 
the  fact  that  the  city  lay  on  the  route  to  Okaz,  where  an 
annual  market  was  held  which  brought  Arabic  tribes 
together  from  all  parts  of  Arabia.  In  addition  barter 
and  exchange  were  carried  on,  tribal  councils  met,  inter- 
tribal disputes  were  adjusted  and  contests  of  strength  and 

216 


MOHAMMEDANISM 

skill  held  Such  reunions  served  to  keep  alive  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  common  bond  of  descent  and  tradition 
among  the  tribes.  There  was,  to  be  sure,  a  marked  dif- 
ference between  the  nomadic  Arabs  and  those  who  had 
been  weaned  to  settled  conditions  of  life;  and  it  is  not 
accidental  that  Mohammed's  family  had  been  residents 
of  a  city  for  several  generations  past.  As  already  sug- 
gested, the  presence  of  many  Jews  and  Christians  in  the 
settled  portions  of  Arabia  acted  as  a  leaven  and  led  to  a 
weakening  of  faith  in  the  ancient  beliefs,  though  the  rites 
arising  from  them  continued  to  be  practised.  Such  in- 
fluences may  well  have  continued  quietly  for  centuries 
without  producing  marked  external  changes.  Stories  are 
told  of  Arabs  who  had  embraced  Judaism  or  Christian- 
ity, but  even  after  making  full  allowance  for  the  influence 
exerted  on  Mohammed  by  the  presence  of  higher  faiths, 
the  secret  of  the  hold  which  the  new  belief  reached  must 
be  sought  in  the  study  of  his  own  mental  and  emotional 
equipment. 

The  Arab,  even  the  unlettered,  is  given  to  contem- 
plation. As  a  child  of  nature  he  is  impressed  by  the  phe- 
nomena around  him,  and  we  may  assume  that  the  wild- 
ftess  and  alternate  impressiveness  and  melancholy  of 
austere  mountain  ranges  with  long  stretches  of  for- 
bidding wastes  were  factors  in  leading  to  this  contem- 
plative disposition  upon  which  many  writers  have  dwelt 
since  Renan  first  emphasized  the  trait.  Viewing  Moham- 
med in  this  light  we  can  understand  how  an  impression- 
able nature,  gifted  with  imagination,  and  swayed  by  emo- 
tions all  the  stronger  for  being  uncontrolled,  should  have 
passed  through  a  mental  struggle  of  which  tradition  has 
preserved  a  record  that  is  in  part,  at  least,  reliable.  He  is 
said  to  have  retired  to  a  cave  outside  of  Mecca  from  time 
to  time  and  there  to  have  meditated  amidst  the  solitude 
of  the  wild,  rocky  region  on  the  mysteries  of  the  universe 
and  of  human  existence.  What  did  it  all  mean — this 

317 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

never-ending  play  of  nature,  this  regular  succession  of 
phenomena  in  the  heavens  and  on  earth,  this  surging 
mass  of  humanity,  struggling  and  toiling  as  though  driven 
by  a  hidden  force,  endeavoring  to  rise  superior  to  sur- 
roundings and  ever  thrown  back  by  stronger  and  appar- 
ently hostile  powers  ?    Renan,  to  whose  views  a  reference 
has  been  made,  set  up  the  thesis  many  years  ago  that  the 
monotony  of  nature  in  Arabia,  the  home  of  the  Semites, 
led  naturally  to  the  thought  of  a  single  power  controlling 
the  universe.2    In  this  extreme  form  the  thesis,  though 
defended  with  a  wealth  of  learning  and  an  ingenuity  and 
brilliancy  that  challenges  admiration,  has  not  been  ac- 
cepted.   A  monotheistic  conception  of  divine  government 
appears  on  the  surface  to  be  a  philosophical  abstraction 
developed  in  schools  of  thought  rather  than  an  intuition 
suggested  by  the  impression  made  by  nature  upon  man. 
We  find  the  thought  suggested  by  the  theologians  of 
ancient  Babylonia  who  superimposed  their  comparatively 
advanced  speculations  on  a  basis  of  primitive  myths.    We 
find  a  remarkable  movement  in  the  direction  of  monothe- 
ism setting  in  in  Egypt  as  early  as  the  fifteenth  century 
before  this  era,  though  likewise  as  the  outcome  of  specu- 
lation in  a  land  that  had  attained  a  high  order  of  civiliza- 
tion.    In  the  case  of  the  Hebrews  we  find  a  genuine 
monotheism  developed  not  by  the  priest  of  the  sanctuaries 
but  by  a  body  of  men  who,  while  not  schooled  in  philo- 
sophic thought,  yet  transformed  a  national  Yahweh  into  a 
Power  of  universal  scope  through  an  emotional  rather 
than  an  intellectual  process,  through  the  inward  realiza- 
tion that  the  fate  of  mankind  was  in  the  hands  of  a  Being, 
acting  by  self-imposed  laws  of  righteousness.    What  the 
Hebrew  Prophets  taught  was  ethical  rather  than  specu- 
lative monotheism.     It  was  precisely  this  kind  of  mono- 
theism   that    Mohammed    preached.      His    early    utter- 

*Histoire  Generals  ct  Systcme  Compare  des  Langues  Scmitiques 
(4th  ed),  p.  6ff. 

218 


MOHAMMEDANISM 

ances  convey  the  impression  of  burning  thoughts  that 
seek  for  an  expression,  and  that  are  marked  by  their  spon- 
taneous emotionalism  in  combination  with  a  strong  ethical 
tinge.  Mohammed  was  incapable  of  realizing  the  philo- 
sophical or  theological  implications  of  his  central  doctrine 
that  "  there  is  no  god  but  Allah,"  but  his  strong  emotional 
nature,  stirred  by  the  majesty  of  divine  Power  as  it  mani- 
fested itself  in  the  impressive  nature  about  him,  and 
moved  by  an  intense  sympathy  with  the  struggles  and  suf- 
ferings of  mankind,  was  able  to  penetrate  to  the  thought 
of  the  unity  behind  the  phenomena  of  nature  and  to  con- 
ceive of  this  unity  as  a  great  Father,  stern  at  times  as  a 
father  must  be  to  wayward  children  and  yet  filled  with 
love  and  tenderness  for  his  offspring.  Power  in  har- 
monious combination  with  love  and  justice  is  the  domi- 
nant note  in  Mohammed's  conception  of  Allah. 

It  is  of  the  essence  of  a  monotheistic  view  of  the 
universe,  interpreted  in  terms  of  ethics,  that  it  brushes 
aside  difficulties  which  a  purely  philosophical  concept 
would  encounter,  such  as  the  question  of  free  will  in  a 
world  controlled  by  an  omnipotent  and  omniscient  Power, 
ordaining  and  foreseeing  all  that  happens,  or  the  still 
more  perplexing  conundrum  how  to  account  for  unneces- 
sary and  unmerited  suffering  and  the  flourishing  of  in- 
justice and  of  wickedness  in  a  world  created  by  a  benevo- 
lent Being.  To  Mohammed  as  to  the  Hebrew  prophets, 
reaching  their  conclusions  by  the  strength  of  their  emo- 
tional nature,  these  difficulties  did  not  exist,  though  the 
Mohammedan  theologians  of  later  generations  were 
obliged  to  grapple  with  them,  when  the  attempt  was  made 
to  formulate  the  teachings  of  Mohammed  into  a  system. 
Mohammed  produced  no  system;  he  was  incapable  of 
doing  so.  To  him  the  alpha  and  omega  of  the  faith  which 
after  internal  struggles  he  attained  was  an  equation — 
Allah  is  Allah,  the  most  high,  the  merciful,  the  just  and 
the  forgiving. 

219 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

There  was  nothing  original  in  his  teaching  about 
Allah,  except  the  force  with  which  he  enunciated  his 
conviction  throughout  his  public  career  that  there  was 
only  one  supreme  Being  to  whom  worship  was  to  be  paid. 
Even  the  name  Allah,  "  the  God,"  paralleled  in  the 
Hebrew  eloah,  which  in  a  plural  form  becomes  a  generic 
designation  for  "  god/'  is  not  original  with  Mohammed. 
It  appears  to  have  been  in  general  use  among  the  Arabs 
as  an  epithet  of  any  god  conceived  as  powerful  and 
strong.  Mohammed  tempered  the  austerity  of  the  con- 
ception of  a  single  all-powerful  Being  above  and  behind 
the  phenomena  of  the  Universe  by  the  attributes  of  love 
and  mercy,  and  the  readiness  to  listen  to  appeal  which  his 
intense  sympathy  with  struggling  and  suffering  mankind 
led  him  to  associate  with  Allah.  If,  therefore,  we  find 
him  in  this  respect  following  in  the  footsteps  of  the 
Hebrew  prophets,  as  also  in  those  of  Jesus,  who  seeks 
entirely  to  set  aside  the  austerity  involved  in  the  con- 
ception of  a  strong  god  by  a  still  more  decided  emphasis 
on  His  love  and  mercy,  are  we  not  justified  in  assuming 
that  there  is  something  in  the  temper  created  under  natu- 
ral surroundings  that  produces  men  of  the  type  of  Amos 
and  Hosea ;  of  Jesus  and  Mohammed — men  not  marked 
by  intense  intellectualism,  certainly  not  profound 
thinkers  as  that  term  is  ordinarily  understood,  but  domi- 
nated by  strong  emotions,  gifted  with  spiritual  insight,  of 
a  contemplative  and  somewhat  melancholy  disposition, 
and  impelled  by  their  intense  human  sympathies?  All 
these  qualities  taken  together  give  to  the  utterances  of 
Mohammed  the  stamp  of  an  elemental  force;  and  this 
applies  more  particularly  to  the  earlier  Suras  of  the 
Koran  in  which  the  sentences,  loosely  strung  together, 
are  blurted  out  with  the  power  of  an  impetuous  stream, 
seeking  for  an  outlet.  The  revelation  of  Allah  so  far 
as  Mohammed  had  any  conception  of  it  was  of  the  order 

220 


MOHAMMEDANISM 

voiced  by  Amos  to  justify  his  denunciation  of  the  sins 
of  his  people  and  his  warnings  of  coming  disaster: 

The  lion  roars,  who  is  not  afraid? 

Yahweh  speaks,  who  will  not  prophesy?     (Amos  3:  8.) 

Allah  had  spoken  to  Mohammed — through  the  Angel 
Gabriel,  as  tradition  has  it — therefore,  he  must  speak. 

There  can  be  no  question  of  the  profound  sincerity 
of  the  man  during  the  early  stages  of  his  career.  The 
vehemence  of  his  denunciation  of  those  who  refused  to 
listen  to  his  message,  who  persisted  in  recognizing  other 
Beings  by  the  side  of  Allah,  clinging  to  practices  incom- 
patible with  the  demands  made  by  a  god  like  Allah,  and, 
above  all,  the  poetical  character  of  those  snatches  of  his 
early  utterances  that  have  been  preserved,  testify  to  this 
sincerity.  The  courage  of  Mohammed,  which  is  one  of 
the  outstanding  traits  throughout  his  career,  points  in 
the  same  direction.  The  opposition  which  his  rebellious 
utterances  aroused  and  which  in  time  became  threatening 
did  not  swerve  him  from  his  path.  He  appears  disheart- 
ened at  times,  but  continues  to  speak  out.  The  converts 
to  the  cause  were  few  during  the  first  years.  Tradition 
has  it  that  a  slave  in  Mohammed's  household  was  his 
first  follower  and  it  seems  certain  that  his  wife  Khadijah 
stood  by  her  husband,  when  those  about  him  assailed 
him.  In  return  he  remained  faithful  to  her  and  even 
after  she  had  passed  away  and  he  took  other  wives,  more 
attractive  in  their  person,  the  memory  of  Khadijah  ap- 
pears to  have  exercised  its  influence  over  him,  though 
many  of  the  stories  told  of  their  relationship  are  clearly 
apocryphal.  Another  early  convert  who  was  destined 
to  play  a  most  prominent  role  was  a  relative  Ali  who 
became  his  son-in-law.  It  would  also  appear  that  the 
conversion  of  Abu  Bekr,  a  prominent  merchant  of  Mecca, 
was  a  decisive  factor  in  bringing  the  movement  to  more 
prominent  notice.  All  the  early  followers  of  Mohammed 

221 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

who  became  known  in  tradition  as  his  "  Companions " 
showed  their  attachment  to  him.  Only  a  sincere  man 
can  arouse  such  devoted  followers  as  Mohammed  gath- 
ered about  him,  and  who,  when  the  opposition  to  him 
reached  'a  climax  in  the  year  622  A.D.,  were  ready  to 
follow  him  to  Medina,  where,  as  we  have  seen,  he  laid 
the  foundation  of  the  Mohammedan  state. 

The  Hejira  (or  so-called  "flight")  marks  in  almost 
every  respect  a  turning-point  in  Mohammed's  career.  The 
struggles  of  the  Mecca  period  were  followed  by  the  rapid 
successes  that  marked  the  change  of  his  activities  to 
Medina,  but  even  glorifying  tradition  cannot  conceal  the 
weakness  which  he  displayed  in  his  new  role  as  a  secular 
leader.  The  Mohammed  of  Medina  justifies  the  appeal  to 
force  as  a  means  of  securing  the  triumph  of  Islam.  Acts 
of  cruelty,  particularly  towards  the  Jews  settled  in  and 
near  Medina — who  angered  him  by  opposing  his  claim  to 
being  a  follower  of  Abraham — are  recorded  that  sug- 
gest a  profound  change  of  mental  development  in  order 
to  account  for  the  transition  of  the  Mohammed  of 
Mecca  to  the  Mohammed  of  Medina.  His  "  revelations  " 
degenerate  into  the  ordres  du  jour  of  a  general,  self- 
conscious  utterances  to  aid  in  carrying  out  worldly  am- 
bitions. He  also  becomes  prolix  and  the  later  Suras  in 
contrast  to  the  earlier  ones  are  long  and  prosy,  catering 
to  the  fondness  of  Arabs  for  tales,  in  order  to  regale 
his  hearers  rather  than  to  edify  and  instruct  them.  He 
adds  no-thing  to  the  message  of  earlier  days,  and  yet 
it  must  be  confessed  that  but  for  the  policy  that  he  pur- 
sued in  Medina  he  would  not  have  aroused  the  national 
consciousness  of  the  Arabs.  He  fired  their  imagination 
with  the  prospect  of  a  world-empire  under  the  domina- 
tion of  the  religion  that  he  founded ;  and  though  he  him- 
self, like  Moses,  was  not  permitted  to  enter  the  Holy 
Land,  he  left  to  his  successors  as  a  legacy  the  policy 
of  spreading  the  Koran  with  the  power  of  the  sword. 

222 


MOHAMMEDANISM 

Mohammed  thus  presents  the  unique  phenomenon  of 
a  founder  of  a  religion  who  also  leads  to  the  establish- 
ment of  a  vast  empire.  Jesus  breaks  the  national  bond 
uniting  his  people  by  substituting  for  it  a  spiritual  union, 
freed  from  national  or  racial  limitations.  Buddha  is 
totally  indifferent  to  national  interests  and  becomes  the 
preacher  of  individual  salvation,  irrespective  of  political 
or  social  associations.  Zarathustra  preaches  his  doctrine 
to  his  people  alone.  Moses  creates  the  Hebrew  nation, 
but  although  the  political  ideal  is  bound  up  with  the 
exclusive  worship  of  Yahweh  as  the  protector  of  the 
nation,  he  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  the  founder  of  the 
larger  Yahwism — certainly  not  the  founder  of  a  uni- 
versal monotheism.  Mohammed  creates  a  world  religion, 
Islam,  and  the  Arabic  nation  as  well.  In  Mecca  he  lays 
the  foundation  of  a  religion,  capable  of  making  its  appeal 
to  humanity  at  large ;  in  Medina  he  stirs  up  the  imagina- 
tion of  his  followers  to  a  pan-Arabic  movement  which 
was  destined  in  the  course  of  a  few  generations  to  exceed 
the  fondest  dreams  of  its  promoters. 

Tradition  reports  that  Mohammed  was  busy  during 
the  last  year  of  his  career  in  planning  an  expedition  that 
was  to  carry  the  religion  beyond  the  bounds  of  Arabia. 
This  is  open  to  question,  though  the  example  of  Chris- 
tianity may  have  led  him  to  indulge  in  such  a  hope.  The 
year  632  put  an  end  to  any  further  ambitions  that  he 
may  have  harbored.  At  the  beginning  of  that  year  he 
was  seized  with  an  illness  that  never  left  him.  Worn 
out  by  a  life  of  toil  and  excitement,  he  was  in  no  con- 
dition to  withstand  the  ravages  of  disease.  His  condition 
grew  steadily  worse  and  on  the  morning  of  the  8th  of 
June  he  passed  away.  The  story  goes  that  just  before 
he  died  he  dragged  his  weary  body  to  the  courtyard  of 
his  house  to  give  a  final  greeting  to  the  congregation 
assembled  for  prayer,  led  by  Abu  Bekr.  A  few  hours 
later  he  sank  into  the  lap  of  his  wife,  Ayesha,  and  closed 

223 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

his  eyes  in  death.  Impressive  though  hardly  authentic 
is  the  tradition  which  represents  Abu  Bekr  declaring  to 
those  who  would  not  believe  that  Mohammed  had  passed 
away,  "  He  who  worships  Mohammed  let  him  kno-w 
that  Mohammed  is  dead,  but  he  who  worships  Allah,  let 
him  know  that  Allah  lives  and  will  not  die." 

Ill 

The  name  given  to  the  religion  which  Mohammed 
founded  was  Islam,  based  on  the  frequent  use  of  the 
verb  in  this  form  in  the  Koran.  It  conveys  the  idea 
of  "  making  one's  peace "  with  Allah  by  a  voluntary 
surrender  to  Allah's  will.  "  Submit  yourselves  to  Allah," 
says  the  prophet  on  many  occasions..  Islam  is,  therefore, 
a  religion  of  submission.  The  name  of  the  religion  re- 
flects the  simplicity  and  naivete  of  Mohammed's  concep- 
tion of  Divine  Government.  He  feels  the  presence  of  the 
superior  Power.  To  him  Allah  is  something  intensely 
real,  almost  tangible,  and  yet  it  can  hardly  be  said  that 
there  is  any  mystic  element  involved  in  his  thoroughly 
emotional  submission  to  the  will  of  Allah. 

The  relationship  in  which  Mohammed  places  himself 
towards  Allah  throws  further  light  upon  his  conception 
of  the  divine  arbiter  of  fates.  Though  devoid  of  any 
historical  spirit  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  the  con- 
viction is  strong  enough  with  him  that  Allah,  the  eternal, 
has  at  all  times  revealed  himself  to  chosen  messengers. 
Man  could  not  through  the  effort  of  his  reason  alone 
reach  to  a  knowledge  of  Allah.  Mohammed's  Allah  is 
the  same  who  manifested  Himself  to  a  long  series  of 
messengers  beginning  with  Adam  and  ending  with  Mo- 
hammed as  the  one  who  put  the  "  seal  "  on  the  utter- 
ances of  his  long  line  of  predecessors.  Divine  revelation 
is  thus  a  continuous  process ;  and  it  will  readily  be  seen 
how  on  the  basis  of  such  a  view  Mohammedan  theologians 
could  build  up  a  system  in  which  Islam  would  be  the 

224 


MOHAMMEDANISM 

coping  stone.  The  chain  of  prophets  leading  in  unbroken 
links  through  Jesus,  John  the  Baptist,  the  Hebrew 
prophets,  Elijah,  Samuel,  Joshua,  Moses,  Abraham,  Noah 
back  to  Adam,  forms  his  strongest  plea  for  calling  upon 
Jews  and  Christians  to  heed  his  message  to  "  submit 
themselves,"  even  though  he  was  primarily  sent  to  preach 
to  his  own  people.  It  is  significant  that  even  at  the 
present  time  the  rock  on  which  the  temple  of  Solomon 
stood  in  Jerusalem  and  around  which  the  Mosque  Haram 
esh-Sherif  is  built  is  almost  as  sacred  to  Arabs  as  the 
black  stone  in  the  corner  of  the  Caaba  at  Mecca.  Strange 
that  in  both  Jerusalem  and  Mecca  a  stone,  as  a  trace  of 
the  primitive  Semitic  stone  cult,  should  form  the  sacred 
object,  which  suggests  that  in  one  sense  Islam  is  a  more 
direct  expression  of  a  genuine  Semitic  evolution  of  re- 
ligion than  either  Judaism  or  Christianity,  into  both  of 
which,  and  more  particularly  into  Christianity,  other  than 
purely  Semitic  elements  have  entered. 

This  marked  trait  of  Islam  finds  its  strongest  illustra- 
tion in  the  Koran,  which,  containing  the  authentic  utter- 
ances of  Mohammed,  forms  for  this  reason  our  main 
source,  in  some  respects  our  only  source,  for  Mohammed's 
view  of  the  religion  which  he  founded.  The  circum- 
stances under  which  the  collection  was  made  within  a 
few  years  after  Mohammed's  death  are  detailed  in  the 
Hadith  literature,  but  only  so  much  of  the  "tradition" 
can  be  regarded  as  reliable  which  associates  the  gathering 
of  Mohammed's  utterances  during  the  Mecca  and  Medina 
periods  with  the  three  lieutenants  of  the  prophet  who  in 
turn  became  the  head  of  the  new  state  after  Mohammed's 
death,  namely,  Abu  Bekr,  Omar  and  Othman,3  and  with 
Mohammed's  secretary,  Zaid  ibn-Thabit.  There  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  shortly  after  Mohammed  had  ac- 

*The  title  "  Caliph  "  given  to  those  who  assume  the  authority  of 
Mohammed  designates  them  as  the  "successor"  or  "substitute"  of 
Mohammed. 

15  225 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

quired  a  leading  position  in  Medina  his  utterances  were 
written  down  by  some  of  his  followers,  because  of  the 
supreme  importance  that  came  to  be  attached  to  his  words. 
In  the  earlier  years  this  was  not  the  case,  but  the  im- 
pression made  by  the  novel  style  of  his  warnings  and 
denunciations,  by  his  allusions  to  Biblical  characters  and 
tales,  by  his  descriptions  of  the  glories  of  Paradise  in 
store  for  those  who  followed  in  the  path  of  Allah  was 
sufficiently  pronounced  to  ensure  their  oral  transmission, 
especially  among  a  people  accustomed  to  handing  down 
stories,  poems  and  sayings  by  word  of  mouth. 

The  Koran  is  not  a  large  book.  By  a  rough  estimate 
it  is  about  one- fourth  the  size  of  the  Old  Testament,  and, 
considering  that  it  comprises  utterances  stretching  over 
twenty  years,  the  small  size  is  in  itself  a  guarantee  of  its 
authenticity,  as  it  is  also  a  proof  that  we  have  not  a 
complete  record  of  all  that  the  prophet  said  during  his 
public  career.  The  style  of  the  Koran  is  individualistic. 
Mohammed  could  well  challenge  those  who  made  sport 
of  him  to  produce  anything  like  it.  Frankly  admitting 
himself  to  be  an  ignorant  man — he  probably  could  neither 
read  nor  write — he  points  to  the  style  of  his  utterances 
as  a  proof  that  what  he  says  is  imparted  to  him  by  a 
Divine  revelation.  In  its  final  form  the  Koran  was  di- 
vided into  114  Suras,  the  larger  ones  at  the  beginning, 
the  shorter  ones  at  the  end,4  with  a  headline  to  each,  indi- 
cating whether  a  Sura  was  revealed  at  Mecca  or  Me- 
dina.5 There  is,  however,  no  further  attempt  at  chrono- 
logical order,  and  so  \ve  are  left  to  unreliable  tradition 
regarding  the  circumstances  under  which  a  Sura  was  pro- 
nounced or  to  a  critical  estimate  of  internal  evidence  for 
the  more  precise  order  of  the  chapters.0 

4  An  exception  is  made  in  the  case  of  the  first  Sura,  which,  con- 
sisting of  seven  verses,  is  the  "doxology"  of  Mohammedanism. 

6  In  the  case  of  some  there  is  a  doubt  whether  they  belong  to 
the  first  or  second  period. 

"Noldeke,  Geschichtc  dcs  Qorans,  2d  ed.,  by  F.  Schwally  (1909). 

226 


MOHAMMEDANISM 

At  first  blush,  a  confusing  blending  of  statements  and 
arguments,  interspersed  with  sharp  denunciations,  bits  of 
stories,  word  pictures  of  Allah's  power  and  of  his  mercy, 
eloquent  appeals,  and  endless  repetitions,  it  seems  amazing 
that  such  a  collection  of  utterances  should  have  acquired 
a  sacred  character.  Yet  here  is  the  fact  that  at  the  present 
time  more  than  two  hundred  millions  of  worshipers  still 
regard  the  Koran  as  divinely  inspired  from  beginning  to 
end,  and  as  the  supreme  guide  of  life.  The  explanation 
of  the  phenomenon  is  to  be  found  in  the  profound  im- 
pression made  by  Mohammed  upon  his  contemporaries. 
What  he  says  comes  to  be  viewed  by  his  followers  as 
a  revelation,  because  he  says  it.  The  Islamic  theory  of 
revelation  thus  rests  entirely  upon  the  impression  made 
by  a  single  personality,  in  contrast  to  Judaism  where  it 
develops  from  the  belief  in  a  group  chosen  by  the  Deity, 
and  to  the  Christian  doctrine,  which  rests  upon  the  annul- 
ment of  an  old  covenant  in  favor  of  a  new  one,  but  like- 
wise deriving  its  initiative  from  a  supreme  ruler  and  not 
as  the  reflection  of  any  single  personality. 

Viewed  in  this  light,  as  an  expression  of  Mohammed's 
personality,  the  Koran  at  closer  range  becomes  a  re- 
markably interesting  and  in  some  respects  a  fascinating 
work.  As  we  make  the  attempt  in  a  sympathetic  spirit  to 
allow  the  influence  of  the  prophet's  personality  play  on 
our  emotions,  we  discover  many  passages  of  striking 
power  and  not  a  few  of  a  certain  strange  beauty.7 

The  miscellaneous  contents  of  the  Suras  of  the  Koran 
make  it  impossible  to  give  more  than  a  general  char- 
acterization of  the  collection.  There  is  no  logical  arrange- 
ment within  a  Sura,  no  gradual  unfolding  of  an  argu- 
ment, nothing  in  short  which  we  would  associate  with 
either  an  essay  or  a  sermon.  There  is  in  all  the  Suras, 
and  particularly  in  the  longer  ones,  a  sudden  transition 
from  one  subject  to  the  other,  often  so  sudden  as  to  be 

*  E.g.— Sura  2,  15-19;  3,  112-114;  22,  1-4;  38,  1-9;  56,  1-24. 

227 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

perplexing.  All  is  in  confusion,  and  the  general  im- 
pression conveyed  is  that  the  Suras  are  a  conglomeration 
of  fragments,  loosely  put  together.  It  is  not  surprising, 
therefore,  that  in  the  task  of  systematizing  the  teachings 
of  Mohammed  on  the  basis  of  the  Koran,  differences  of 
opinion  arose  which  led  to  the  formation  of  sects,  though 
other  factors  contributed  to  the  splitting  up  of  the  Mo- 
hammedans into  many  groups.  Almost  any  philosophical 
opinion  or  theological  interpretation  of  the  doctrines  of 
Islam  could  find  a  support  in  the  Koran.  Advocates  of 
the  freedom  of  the  will  appealed  to  the  utterances  of  the 
prophet,  equally  with  those  who  carried  to  an  extreme 
the  belief  that  all  was  preordained  by  Allah.8  After  a 
struggle  lasting  for  several  centuries,  in  the  course  of 
which  a  large  variety  of  "  heresies  "  came  to  the  fore, 
Mohammedan  orthodoxy  triumphed,  free  discussion  was 
virtually  suppressed,  and  Islam  settled  down  to  a  division 
into  two  large  groups,  the  followers  of  Sunna,  or  "•  tra- 
dition," and  those  who  deviated  therefrom,  chiefly,  in 
not  recognizing  the  first  three  "  successors  "  or  caliphs, 
Abu  Bekr,  Omar  and  Othman,  as  legitimate  and  making 
Mohammed's  second  cousin  and  son-in-law  AH  his  direct 
heir.  This  was  the  party  known  as  Shi'a — a  term  which 
conveys  the  force  of  "  partisan."  The  strength  of  the 
Shiites  lay  in  Persia,  and  this,  perhaps  for  the  reason 
that  although  the  movement  is  of  Arabic  origin  the  idea 
of  the  incarnation  of  the  deity  in  a  human  being,  which 
became  a  leading  principle  of  Shi'ism,  fitted  in  with 
inherited  Aryan  beliefs  in  the  divine  character  of  king- 
ship. To  the  Shi'ites  AH  became  such  an  "  incarnation  " 
— a  thought  abhorrent  to  the  followers  of  Sunna.  Only 
one  who  was  divinely  chosen  could,  according  to  them, 
be  the  successor  of  Mohammed.  That  person,  it  was 

8  See  for  details  Goldziher's  authoritative  work,  Mohammed  and 
Islam  (English  translation  by  Mrs.  L.  H.  Seclye),  especially  chapters 
3  and  4. 

228 


MOHAMMEDANISM 

claimed,  was  Ali  and  after  him  in  a  regular  family  line 
other  successors  known  as  Imams  or  "  leaders."  Several 
other  religious  beliefs,  of  an  Aryan  rather  than  Semitic 
stripe,  were  introduced  into  Islam  by  the  Persian  fol- 
lowers of  Mohammed. 

Within  the  circles  of  Sunna,  which  comprise  the 
Mohammedans  of  Arabia,  Palestine,  most  of  Syria,  Egypt 
and  northern  Africa,  as  well  as  of  India,  four  divisions, 
or  rather  "  rites/'  are  recognized  as  orthodox,  known 
from  their  founders  as  Hanbalites,  Shafi'ites,  Malikites 
and  Hanifites.9  They  differ  from  one  another  in  matters 
of  ritual,  while  agreeing  substantially  in  their  doctrinal 
interpretations. 

IV 

Taking  up,  in  conclusion,  the  chief  rites  of  Islam  in 
further  illustration  of  the  general  character  of  the  re- 
ligion, we  must  again  bear  in  mind  that  the  systematiza- 
tion  of  these  rites  is  the  work  of  the  theologians  on  the 
basis  of  the  Koran,  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  grow- 
ing communities  of  followers  and  the  organization  of 
the  Mohammedan  state. 

It  is  not  easy  to  follow  this  process  of  organization 
in  detail,  though  it  would  seem  that  prayer  (salat)  in 
unison  was  one  of  the  first  steps  to  be  taken.  There  is 
no  adjuration  more  frequently  repeated  in  the  Koran  than 
the  one  to  "  be  steadfast  in  prayer."  The  institution  of 
daily  prayers  in  imitation  of  Jews  and  Christians  was 
one  of  the  most  radical  innovations  introduced  by  Mo- 
hammed into  the  lives  of  the  Arabs.  Exactly  why  he 
fixed  upon  five  periods  daily,  instead  of  the  three  observed 
by  pious  Jews,  we  do  not  know.10  The  prayer  was  at 

9  On  the  geographical  distribution  of  these  divisions,  see  Gold- 
ziher,  op.  cit.,  p.  55  ff. 

10  On  the  most  sacred  day  of  the  Jewish  calendar,  the  Day  of 
Atonement,  the  Jews  have  five  prayer  periods,  and  it  may  be  that  this 
suggested  to  Mohammed  that  number  for  daily  worship. 

229 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

first  merely  a  gathering  of  the  faithful  with  Mohammed 
as  the  leader.  The  example  of  the  prophet  became  the 
pattern  followed  to  this  day.  Public  prayer  in  the  mosques 
is  offered  always  under  a  leader  who  takes  his  place  in 
front  of  the  worshipers  and  leads  in  the  exercise,  much 
as  the  head  of  a  company  gives  his  commands.  Leader 
and  worshiper  direct  their  faces  towards  the  Caaba  at 
Mecca.  The  service  consists  of  several  "  cycles "  of 
prayers,  and  each  cycle  of  a  number  of  postures,  carried 
out  in  unison  by  the  leader — with  the  worshipers  ar- 
ranged in  rows  behind  him.11  Prayer  thus  convention- 
alized and  having  the  appearance  of  a  military  drill  is  a 
religious  exercise  rather  than  a  spontaneous  prompting 
of  the  desire  for  communion  with  a  higher  Being.  The 
form  and  formulas  of  prayers  are  thus  alike  stereotyped, 
with  the  praise  oi  Allah  and  a  recital  of  his  majesty  as 
the  main  features,  and  the  individual  request  conspicuous 
for  its  absence.  The  salat  (prayer)  is  essentially  a 
humble  acknowledgment  five  times  daily  of  Allah's  great- 
ness and  of  his  supreme  control  of  everything. 

So  far  as  the  external  form  of  Islam  is  concerned,  the 
influence  of  Judaism  is  strongest  perhaps  in  the  public 
service.  On  the  other  hand,  Christian  influence  is  be- 
trayed in  the  institution  of  a  fast  period  patterned  after 
the  Lenten  season  and  extending  for  a  period  of  one 
lunar  month.  Mohammed  fixed  upon  a  month,  known  as 
Ramadan,  which  even  in  pagan  Arabic  had  acquired  a 
special  significance  as  a  period  of  truce  from  all  hostil- 
ities. Abstention  from  food  from  sunrise  to  sunset  made 
this  fast  the  most  arduous  requirement  imposed  upon 
the  prophet's  followers,  only  to  some  extent  relieved  by 
the  permission  to  indulge  in  eating  and  drinking  during 
the  night,  so  as  to  prepare  for  the  daily  fast.  Inasmuch 
as  the  Mohammedans  still  follow  the  lunar  calendar  of 

"  See  Lane,  Account  of  the  Manners  and  Customs  of  the  Modern 
Egyptians,  i,  pp.  90-113. 

230 


MOHAMMEDANISM 

ancient  days,  with  no  adjustment  to  the  solar  year,  the 
season  in  which  Ramadan  falls  varies  constantly.  When 
it  falls  during  the  hot  summer  months,  the  hardship  in- 
volved in  abstaining  daily  from  water  as  well  as  from 
food  for  a  period  of  considerably  more  than  twelve  hours 
is  a  terrible  strain,  particularly  since  the  labors  of  the 
day  go  on  uninterruptedly.  Indeed,  outside  of  the  festi- 
vals in  memory  of  the  saints  which  are  times  of  feasting, 
of  processions  and  of  jollifications,  and  generally  repre- 
sent old  local  cults  to  which  a  Mohammedan  character 
has  been  given,12  Islam  has  neither  festivals  nor  an  insti- 
tution like  the  Christian  and  Jewish  Sabbath.  Friday, 
to  be  sure,  has  acquired  a  special  significance  but  merely 
as  a  day  of  "  gathering,"  13  when  the  obligation  to  attend 
the  public  service  is  more  strictly  observed,  without, 
however,  any  cessation  of  the  daily  toil. 

The  fast  (saum)  of  Ramadan,  though  strictly  ob- 
served throughout  the  Mohammedan  world,  has  never 
acted  as  a  factor  in  preserving  the  hold  of  the  religion 
upon  its  adherents  as  is  the  case  with  the  daily  prayer, 
nor  does  it  serve  to  impress  upon  the  individual  the  sense 
of  belonging  to  a  world-wide  community  as  does  a  third 
"  pillar  "  of  the  faith — the  pilgrimage  to  Mecca.  In 
making  this  visit  to  the  holy  city  in  which  Mohammed 
saw  the  light  of  day  obligatory  upon  every  Mohammedan, 
Islam  builded  probably  better  than  it  knew.  With  the 
spread  of  Islam  by  conquest  throughout  the  East  and  into 
parts  of  western  Europe,  the  religion  became  international 
in  scope,  and  the  allegiance  to  Mecca  emphasized  by  the 
pilgrimage  was  the  chief  factor  in  maintaining  amidst 
all  vicissitudes  through  the  succession  of  centuries  down 
to  our  days  the  ideas  and  ideals  of  catholic  Islam.  The 
Mecca  pilgrimage,  as  it  forms  the  most  striking  visible 

12  Such  saints'  days  are  common  in  Egypt,  Palestine  and  Persia — 
but  not  in  Arabia. 

18  It  is  known  as  the  Yaum  el-Jam? f  "  day  of  gathering." 

231 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

bond  among  all  those  who  in  whatever  part  of  the  world 
follow  the  standard  of  the  prophet,  is  also  the  strongest 
bulwark  against  the  entrance  of  modern  currents  of 
thought  into  the  religion.  This  is  all  the  more  note- 
worthy because  the  Haj 14 — as  the  pilgrimage  is  called — 
has  so  little  about  it  which  is  connected  with  the  higher 
and  essential  aspects  of  Islam.  It  represents  the  grafting 
of  an  old  ceremonial  antedating  the  time  of  Mohammed 
by  many  centuries  on  to  a  religion  which  has  its  roots 
in  a  revolt  against  the  very  conceptions  of  religion  of 
which  the  ceremonial  is  an  expression.  The  researches 
of  European  scholars  15  have  shown  that  the  real  goal  of 
the  pilgrimage  was  originally  a  sacred  mountain  Muz- 
dalifa  in  the  valley  of  Mina,  just  outside  of  Mecca.  Se- 
mitic hordes  living  in  mountainous  regions  placed  the  seat 
of  their  gods  on  the  mountain  tops,  in  addition  to  seeing 
manifestations  of  the  divine  in  trees,  wells  and  stones. 
In  a  sense  every  mountain  was  sacred  and  one  need  only 
recall  the  sanctity  attaching  in  Palestine  to  Sinai,  Nebo, 
Gerizim,  Seir,  Zion  and  Carmel  to  realize  how  deeply 
ingrained  the  conception  was  among  the  Semites.  It 
became  customary  for  Arabs  to  pay  an  annual  visit  to 
Muzdalifa.  Three  days  were  spent  at  the  Mount,  the 
ceremonies  culminating  in  a  general  sacrifice  of  sheep 
to  the  deity  to  whom  the  Mount  was  sacred.  In  Mecca 
there  was  an  ancient  sanctuary,  built  around  a  stone  that 
had  acquired  special  sanctity,  and  it  was  natural  for  those 
who  came  from  various  parts  of  Arabia  by  this  way  to 
the  mountain  to  stop  at  the  sanctuary  to  pay  their  re- 
spects to  the  god  of  the  Caaba.  Mecca  thus  acquired  con- 
siderable importance  long  before  the  days  of  Mohammed. 
It  was,  however,  the  accident  of  Mohammed's  birth  in 
Mecca  and  his  own  attachment  to  the  Caaba,  of  which 

14 Meaning  "circuit,"  i.e.,  around  a  sanctuary. 
"See   especially    Snouck    Hurgronje,   Met   Mekkaansch   Feest, 
Leiden,  1880. 

232 


MOHAMMEDANISM 

the  clan  Koreish  to  which  he  belonged  were  the  guard- 
ians, that  transformed  the  old  pilgrimage  to  Muzdalifa 
to  an  act  of  worship  centring  around  the  Mecca  sanctu- 
ary. Mohammed  could  not  cut  himself  entirely  loose 
from  time-honored  associations  and  so  the  Caaba  became 
for  him  the  "  house  of  Allah  "  par  excellence.  His  ex- 
ample in  performing  the  traditional  rites  at  Mecca  and 
on  the  way  to  Muzdalifa  on  the  occasion  of  his  last  visit 
to  his  native  town  became  established  usage  among  his 
followers,  leading  to  the  duty  resting  upon  every  Moham- 
medan to  make  the  pilgrimage  to  Mecca  at  least  once  in 
his  lifetime. 

There  was,  to  be  sure,  just  as  much  or  just  as  little 
reason  for  connecting  Islam  with  Muzdalifa  as  with  the 
Caaba.  The  rites  performed  at  both  belong  to  the  same 
order  and  are  survivals  of  primitive  Semitic  religion. 
At  Muzdalifa  the  chief  rite  was,  as  we  have  seen,  an 
animal  sacrifice;  at  Mecca  it  was  the  circuit  around  the 
Caaba,  generally  seven  times,  and  kissing  the  sacred  black 
stone  1G  at  each  turn.  There  were  other  sacred  stones 
near  the  sanctuary,  and  to  this  day  it  is  customary  to 
stand  on  these  stones  or  to  touch  them  so  as  to  acquire 
their  beneficent  influence.  Little  chapels  have  been  built 
around  four  of  such  sacred  stones  in  the  large  courtyard 
surrounding  the  Caaba,  each  chapel  being  dedicated  to  one 
of  the  four  orthodox  sects  or  divisions  of  Islam.  A  fur- 
ther trace  of  stone  cult  is  to  be  seen  in  the  ceremony  of 
throwing  stones  at  three  strange-looking  rocks  in  the  valley 
of  Mina,  for  the  purpose,  as  it  is  now  said,  of  driving  off 
evil  demons  personified  by  these  rocks,  but  which  at  one 
time  must  have  been  regarded  as  sacred.  Further,  within 
the  colonnaded  enclosure  around  the  Caaba  17  there  is  a 

18  On  the  character  of  this  stone  as  for  all  details  regarding  the 
pilgrimage,  see  Burton's  classical  work,  Personal  Narrative  of  a 
Pilgrimage  to  Al  Medinah  and  Meccah  (many  editions) — one  of  the 
most  fascinating  works  that  have  ever  been  written. 

"See  the  illustration  in  Snouck  Hurgronje's  Mekka  (The 
Hague,  1888),  PI.  2,  or  Traugott  Mann,  Der  Islam  (Leipzig,  1914), 
p.  ii. 

233 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

sacred  well,  known  as  Zemzem,  out  of  which  it  is  regarded 
to  be  both  a  privilege  and  sacred  duty  to  drink  as  part  of 
the  pilgrimage  ceremonial.  We  have  thus  a  combination 
of  stone,  water  and  mountain  worship  in  connection  with 
the  pilgrimage,  and  only  the  fourth  element  of  primitive 
Semitic  worship,  the  sacred  tree,  is  lacking  to  make  the 
cycle  complete.  Finally,  besides  the  sacred  Mount  Muz- 
dalifa,  there  are  two  small  hills  just  outside  of  the  en- 
closure around  the  Caaba  at  a  distance  of  a  few  hundred 
feet  from  one  another  and  known  as  Sawa  and  Marwa. 
Between  these  hills  the  pilgrim  runs  forward  and  back- 
ward seven  times. 

Now,  to  connect  these  strange  and  purely  primitive 
rites  with  Islam,  the  Mohammedan  theologians  evolved 
series  of  formulae,  prayers,  if  you  choose,  containing  the 
praise  of  Allah  and  extracts  from  the  Koran,  to  be  recited 
frequently  by  the  pilgrims  and  in  connection  with  the 
rather  complicated  ceremonies,18  but  the  ceremonies  them- 
selves are  far  older  and  of  independent  origin.  The  Haj 
or  pilgrimage  thus  turns  out  to  be  artificially  grafted  on 
to  Islam.  Even  the  month  selected  for  it,  known  as  the 
Zu-l-Haj,  "  month  of  Haj,"  is  the  traditional  period  in 
which  the  visit  to  Muzdalifa  was  performed  generations 
and  centuries  before  the  appearance  of  Mohammed;  and 
as  a  final  proof  that  the  attachment  of  a  visit  to  the 
Caaba  is  an  after-thought,  one  may  instance  the  fact  that 
the  circuit  round  the  Caaba  may  be  made  at  any  time 
during  the  year,  as  may  also  the  running  between  Sawa 
and  Marwa  and  drinking  out  of  Zemzem  or  standing  on 
the  stones  around  the  Caaba,  whereas  the  journey  through 
the  valley  of  Mina  to  the  sacred  Mount  can  be  undertaken 
only  during  the  "  month  of  pilgrimage."  It  is  more 

18  Snouck  Hurgronje  in  his  standard  work  on  Mecca,  chapter  2, 
pp.  2&~47,  has  shown  how  an  elaborate  organization  was  perfected 
in  the  city  to  provide  for  the  pilgrims  coming  from  all  parts  of  the 
Mohammedan  world  and  to  guide  them  in  the  correct  performance 
of  the  various  rites  and  ceremonies. 

234 


MOHAMMEDANISM 

particularly  the  roth  day  of  this  month  which  must  be 
passed  on  Muzdalifa.  The  night  of  the  Qth  is  spent  at 
the  foot  of  the  mountain  and  early  the  next  morning  the 
ascent  is  made  to  greet  the  sun  at  its  rise.  In  order  to 
give  also  this  rite  of  worship  a  Mohammedan  character, 
it  is  provided  that  the  pilgrims  must  listen  to  a  long 
sermon  on  Islam  while  gathered  on  the  mountain. 

Mohammed  in  thus  setting  the  example  for  all  times 
of  observing  rites  that  had  merely  the  sanction  of  an- 
tiquity to  commend  them,  shows  himself  to  be  a,  child  of 
the  age  in  which  he  lived,  despite  his  departure  from 
ancient  beliefs.  The  power  of  traditional  custom  was 
too  strong  for  him,  but  on  the  other  hand  his  retention 
of  old  rites,  though  foreign  to  his  religious  teachings, 
made  it  easier  for  the  Arabs  to  accept  his  message.  Islam, 
in  fact,  was  never  hostile  to  the  retention  of  popular 
beliefs,  sueh  as  the  one  in  jinns  or  demons,  as  long  as  they 
did  not  interfere  with  the  central  doctrine  of  Allah's 
supreme  power.  Popular  customs  having  their  roots  in  a 
distant  antiquity,  such  as  hanging  votive  objects  on  sacred 
trees,19  were  retained  with  little  or  no  consciousness  of 
their  being  survivals  of  beliefs  inconsistent  with  advanced 
religious  conceptions.  The  hold  that  the  Haj  has  upon 
Mohammedans  everywhere  is  amazingly  strong.  The 
greatest  longing  of  every  believer  is  to  see  the  Caaba,  to 
kiss  the  black  stone  and  to  perform  the  other  rites.  He 
who  has  once  performed  the  pilgrimage  is  secure  against 
any  temptation  to  be  weaned  from  the  faith  of  his  fore- 
fathers. Each  year  tens  of  thousands  20  do  not  shun  the 
hardship  of  wandering  on  foot  for  months  to-  reach  the 
sacred  spot.  No  sacrifice  is  too  great,  no  exertion  too 
heavy;  and  if  one  cannot  go  oneself,  one  scrapes  enough 

19  See  many  examples  of  the  survival  of  primitive  rites  in  Pales- 
tine and  Syria  among  the  Mohammedan  population  in  Curtiss,  Primi- 
tive Semitic  Religion  To-day  (Chicago,  1902). 

30  It  is  estimated  that  the  Haj  brings  over  one  hundred  thousand 
Moslems  each  year  to  Mecca. 

235 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

money  together  to  purchase  a  substitute.  The  railroad 
communication  now  established  from  Damascus  to  Medina 
will  further  stimulate  the  pious  to  increased  efforts  to 
obtain  the  wherewithal  to  carry  out  the  obligation  to 
imitate  the  example  set  by  the  prophet.  To  acquire  the 
title  of  Hajji,  bestowed  on  the  one  who  has  been  to 
Mecca,  insures  a  through  passage  at  death  to  Paradise. 

If  the  Haj  is  the  visible  bond  uniting  all  Moslems 
into  a  single  vast  community,  another  requirement  served 
to  establish  the  economic  basis  of  Mohammedanism — 
the  zakat  or  "  poor  tax/'  In  the  case  of  the  three  "  pillars 
of  the  faith  "  that  we  have  been  discussing — prayer,  fast- 
ing in  the  month  of  Ramadan,  and  the  Haj — we  have 
illustrations  of  the  powerful  personal  influence  of  the 
prophet.  These  duties  are  obligatory  because  of  the  ex- 
ample set  by  the  prophet.  Two  of  them  are  due  to  direct 
adaptations  from  Judaism  and  Christianity  respectively, 
while  the  third  is  of  native  origin,  emphasizing  a  dis- 
tinctively Arabic  phase  of  the  religion.  The  zakat  has 
a  more  complicated  history.  At  its  start  it  appears  to 
have  been  a  "  charity  "  contribution  for  the  support  of 
the  poor.  As  such  it  is  a  tribute  to  the  prophet's  humani- 
tarian instincts,  and  indeed  throughout  the  Koran  there 
is  the  strongest  possible  emphasis  upon  kindness  to  the 
poor,  and  protection  for  the  widow  and  orphan.  "  The 
poor  ye  will  always  have  with  you  "  is  accepted  as  an 
axiom  and  it  is  assumed  that  every  follower  of  Moham- 
med is  charitably  inclined.  "  Prayer,"  a  caliph  is  made 
to  say,  "  carries  us  half-way  to  Allah,  fasting  brings  us 
to  the  door  of  His  palace,  but  alms-giving  procures  us 
admission." 

To  understand  this  emphasis  we  must  take  into  con- 
sideration the  unregulated  economic  conditions  of  the 
ancient  East,  which  still  exist  at  the  present  time.  The 
poor  are  an  element  of  the  population  jn  every  town  and 
village  as  distinct  as  are  the  traders,  the  workers,  the 

236 


MOHAMMEDANISM 

learned  and  the  state  officials.  The  view  is  not  uncommon 
that  the  poor  exist  in  order  to  evoke  the  charitable  spirit 
of  mankind.  It  is  Allah  who  makes  the  poor  and  the 
rich.  The  poor  man  is  in  some  respects  a  privileged 
character,  since  he  is  the  cause  of  storing  up  "  merit  "  21 
for  oneself  by  dispensing  charity,  a  merit  of  which  one 
will  reap  the  reward  when  the  day  of  judgment  comes. 

The  zakat,  however,  came  to  serve  an  entirely  different 
purpose,  dictated  by  the  conditions  that  arose  with  the 
two- fold  aspect  of  Islam  as  a  religion  and  a  state.  Instead 
of  being  a  voluntary  contribution  for  the  support  of  the 
poor,  the  zakat  was  made  a  legal  assessment  to  form  part 
of  a  revenue  for  the  state — a  tax  imposed  upon  every  one, 
which  in  time  led  to  many  ramifications.  The  zakat 
was  the  starting-point  for  the  development  of  a  com- 
munity or  state  budget.  To  this  day  the  legal  fiction 
of  the  zakat  is  maintained  as  the  basis  of  governmental 
taxes  and  a  distinction  was  introduced  between  the  zakat 
as  a  compulsory  contribution,  and  sadakat  ("charity") 
as  voluntary  alms-giving  in  addition  to  the  zakat.  This 
"pillar"  of  the  faith  thus  furnishes  an  illustration  of 
the  combination  of  state  functions  with  religious  duties, 
so  characteristic  of  the  theocratic  form  of  government 
which  developed  with  the  spread  of  political  power 
through  the  conquests  of  the  Arabs. 

The  combination  of  church  and  state  in  Islam  led  to 
other  features,  quite  distinct  from  those  which  resulted 
from  the  same  process  in  Christianity.  Islam  never  de- 
veloped a  priesthood  in  any  real  sense.  The  civil  and 
religious  authority  was  concentrated  in  the  caliph  to  an 
extent  for  which  no  parallel  exists  in  the  Christian  states 
of  Europe.  As  the  Mohammedan  power  split  up  into 
several  caliphates,  in  rivalry  with  one  another,  complica- 
tions, to  be  sure,  ensued  which  were  only  partially  set 

31  Zakat  conveys  the  idea  of  *  merit " ;  as  does  the  corresponding 
word  in  Hebrew,  sekuth. 

237 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

aside  by  the  establishment  of  the  Turkish  Empire  in 
control  of  the  entire  Mohammedan  world.  In  theory, 
however,  the  Sultan  is  the  head  of  the  church  as  well  as 
of  the  state.  Opposition  to  that  authority  is  based  on  its 
supposed  illegitimacy,  for  neither  the  Shiites  nor  a  great 
body  of  those  who  follow  Sunna  were  ever  reconciled  to 
recognizing  the  Sultan  of  Turkey  as  the  real  successor 
of  Mohammed.  That  opposition  grew  in  strength  as  the 
Turkish  Empire  began  to  crumble,  until  to-day  only  a 
small  proportion  of  the  Mohammedan  world  feels  bound 
to  follow  the  authority  of  the  Sultan,  even  when  he  calls 
the  faithful  to  enter  upon  a  jihad — a  crusade  for  the 
preservation  of  the  faith.  As  a  concession  to  the  religious 
supremacy  of  Islam,  the  Sultan  nominally  recognizes  the 
authority  of  an  official  known  as  the  Sheikh  el-Islam, 
"  the  Chief  of  Islam,"  who  enforces  the  decisions  of  the 
Turkish  state  by  an  endorsement  in  the  name  of  the  re- 
ligion. Naturally  such  a  "  chief,"  resident  in  Constanti- 
nople, is  merely  a  creature  of  the  state,  so  that  his  author- 
ity is  largely  nominal.  The  revolt  of  Arabia  since  the 
outbreak  of  the  war  22  is  merely  the  last  of  various  at- 
tempts to  reestablish  a  central  form  of  theocratic  gov- 
ernment with  the  religious  factor  as  the  dominating  one. 
A  union,  however,  of  Mohammedans  that  should  be 
at  once  political  and  religious  is  a  hopeless  task,  as  hope- 
less as  any  such  union  in  Christendom.  Even  under  the 
dominion  of  orthodoxy  such  unions  were  condemned  to 
failure.  The  rise  of  Protestantism  marked  the  failure 
in  the  greatest  attempt  at  such  a  combination  that  had 
ever  been  made.  Catholicism  came  nearer  to  success, 
because  of  its  efficient  organization  and  because  of  the 
powerful  aid  given  by  a  strong  priesthood.  But  even 
'Catholicism  could  not  prevent  a  split  between  Eastern 
and  Western  Christianity.  With  the  growing  strength  of 

M  See  Snouck  Hurgronje's  account.  The  Revolt  in  Arabia.    Eng- 
lish translation  by  Prof.  Richard  Gottheil,  New  York,  1916. 

238 


MOHAMMEDANISM 

national  consciousness  in  the  states  of  Western  Europe, 
its  power  even  over  Western  Christianity  steadily  declined 
until  the  final  break  between  Church  and  State  came, 
inaugurated  by  the  Protestant  Reformation.  As  indi- 
cated, the  process  proceeded  along  different  lines  in  Islam, 
but  the  issue  was  identical.  The  Mohammedan  state 
projected  by  Mohammed  was  doomed  to  failure,  but  the 
religion  founded  by  him  will  survive  this  failure,  as  Chris- 
tianity survived  the  separation  of  Church  and  State, 
which,  with  the  growing  force  of  democracy  in  govern- 
ment, becomes  an  absolute  divorce. 

At  present,  with  the  infusion  of  Western  ideas  and 
strong  Western  influences  into  Mohammedan  lands,  Islam 
may  be  said  to  be  on  trial,  even  in  a  more  decided  sense 
than  Christianity,  which  is  feeling  the  force  of  the  new 
currents  of  thought,  brought  on  by  the  discoveries  in  the 
realm  of  the  natural  sciences.  Will  Islam  be  able  to  adapt 
itself  after  its  long  intellectual  isolation  from  outside  cur- 
rents to  the  new  conditions  demanded  by  the  inevitable 
changes,  superinduced  by  modern  thought,  modern  modes 
of  life  and  modern  political  drift? 

The  strength  of  Islam  has  always  consisted  in  the 
simplicity  of  its  doctrines,  despite  the  elaborate  theological 
systems  constructed  in  the  course  of  centuries  around 
these  doctrines.  The  first  "  pillar  of  faith/'  23  the  procla- 
mation of  the  unity  of  Allah,  emphasizing  the  thought  of 
unity  in  the  phenomena  of  the  universe,  is  not  difficult  to 
grasp  in  its  Islamic  form,  which  leaves  room,  as  we  have 
seen,  for  the  persistent  popular  beliefs  in  good  and  evil 
demons  that  alternately  aid  and  check  the  efforts  of  man. 
The  ritual,  except  for  the  obligation  of  prayer  five  times 
daily,  is  not  burdensome.  Life  hitherto  in  the  East  has 
not  been  over-strenuous*  Time  is  a  cheap  commodity, 

"The  five  "pillars,"  as  above  set  forth,  are  usually  enumerated 
as  follows:  (i)  Shahada,  the  witness  to  the  faith  in  the  unity  of 
Allah;  (2)  Salat,  prayer;  (3)  Zakat,  the  poor-tax;  (4)  Saum,  fast- 
ing during  Ramadan;  and  (5)  the  Haj,  the  pilgrimage  to  Mecca. 

239 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

and  to  turn  aside  from  one's  toil  for  a  brief  prayer  ser- 
vice which  may  be  performed  anywhere  is  not  as  onerous 
as  it  would  be  in  our  over-busy  Western  world.  Besides, 
the  obligation  has  never  been  strictly  observed  by  the 
great  masses.  The  pilgrimage  to  Mecca  is  a  wonderful 
excursion — a  great  experience  in  one's  life;  and  a  religion 
that  thus  imposes  travel  as  an  obligation  need  have  no 
fear  of  diminishing  the  attachment  to  it.  The  fasting  in 
Ramadan  is  a  burden,  though  cheerfully  borne,  as  is  the 
zakat  because  of  the  assurance  of  reward  for  the  "  merit  " 
thus  acquired.  Taking  over  from  Jews  and  Christians 
the  doctrine  of  enjoyment  of  a  perpetual  Paradise  for 
the  pious,  Mohammed  improved  upon  the  models  by 
painting  the  joys  of  eternal  bliss  in  colors  specially  adapted 
to  lure  the  untutored  nomads,  living  in  a  land  where  the 
dearth  of  water  entails  hardships  and  where  life  suffers 
from  its  monotony.  To  look,  forward  to  life  in  a  garden 
where  luscious  fruits  are  to  be  had  for  the  picking,  where 
water  flows  in  abundance  and  where  black-eyed  damsels 
are  ready  to  serve  and  to  attend  to  all  one's  needs,  was 
calculated  to  make  a  strong  appeal  to  others  as  well  as  to 
the  nomad,  by  its  contrast  to  agriculture,  with  its  rela- 
tively hard  conditions  of  life.  In  the  Biblical  description 
of  primeval  Paradise,  on  which  the  picture  of  the  joys 
in  store  after  death  for  those  who  have  lived  a  life 
according  to  the  dictates  of  religion  is  based,  there  is  the 
same  contrast  between  the  ideal  state  of  the  gardener 
who  has  merely  to  stretch  forth  his  hand  to  obtain  his 
food,  lying  under  the  shadow  of  trees  on  the  banks  of 
cooling  rivers,  as  against  the  agriculturist  who  cultivates 
the  soil  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow. 

The  ethics  of  Islam  are  simple.  Fair  dealings  with 
one's  neighbors  and  kindness  towards  animals  may  be 
said  to  sum  up  the  chief  virtues,  though  they  must  be 
supplemented  by  the  performance  of  the  religious  duties 
and  the  obligation  to  have  one's  children  instructed  in  the 

240 


MOHAMMEDANISM 

teachings  of  Islam.  Abstinence  from  strong  drink,  em- 
phasized by  Mohammed  in  connection  with  his  general 
opposition  towards  the  luxuries  that  accompany  a  higher 
culture,24  made  for  simple  habits  of  life  and  encouraged 
a  self-restraint  that  acted  wholesomely  in  other  respects. 
Though  on  the  whole  an  austere  religion,  Islam  did  not 
discourage  the  cultivation  of  the  fine  arts,25  though  with 
a  restriction  against  the  reproduction  of  the  human  figure. 
It  directly  promoted  literature,  with  the  exclusion,  to  be 
sure,  of  the  drama,  and  furthered  science,  more  particu- 
larly medicine  and  mathematics,  by  the  side  of  historiog- 
raphy, geography  and  jurisprudence,  bound  up,  however, 
with  the  theological  legalism.  Nor  should  we  forget  our 
debt  to  the  Mohammedan  theologians  and  thinkers  who 
transmitted  the  teachings  of  Aristotle,  albeit  that  they 
gave  to  his  speculations  a  Mohammedan  garb. 

Up  to  the  present  the  indications  are  that  Moham- 
medanism can  absorb  Western  influences  to  a  certain 
extent  without  either  losing  its  character  or  its  hold  on 
the  masses.  The  impression  one  receives  on  a  visit  to 
Egypt  where  contact  with  the  West  is  direct  is  that  merely 
the  surface  of  Islam  has  been  touched  by  the  infusion  of 
Western  modes  of  life.  The  old  incrustated  culture  of 
the  East,  so  indissolubly  bound  up  with  Islam,  stands 
proof  against  attacks,  at  least  to  the  extent  of  preserving 
all  its  essential  features. 

Just  here  is  the  crux  of  the  problem.  Islam  is  more 
than  a  religion — it  is  a  distinct  form  of  civilization,  just 
as  Christianity  is  part  and  parcel  of  European  and  Amer- 
ican civilization,  and  as  Buddhism  is  bound  up  with  the 

24  Viniculture  encounters  opposition  in  the  Old  Testament  as 
against  agriculture,   which   is   the   ideal   state — to   be   preferred   to 
commerce  and  city  life.     See  a  paper  by  the  writer,  "  Wine  in  the 
Pentateuchal   Codes,"  Journal  of  the  American   Oriental  Society, 
33:  180-192. 

25  On   Mohammedan   art   in   its   various   ramifications,    see  the 
magnificent  work  of  Sarre  and  Martin,  Muhammedanische  Kunst 
(3  vols.,  Munich,  1912). 

1 6  241 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

Hindu  attitude  towards  life.  In  a  contact  between  two 
civilizations  as  distinct  from  one  another  as  the  Islamic 
East  and  the  Christian  West  there  seems  to  be  no  possi- 
bility of  a  mutual  approach.  Certainly,  one  may  question 
whether  missionary  efforts,  however  praiseworthy  and 
however  zealously  and  skilfully  conducted,  will  ever 
bring  about  such  an  approach — perhaps  in  part  for  the 
reason  that  on  the  purely  religious  and  ethical  side  Islam 
has  so  much  in  common  with  Christianity,  though  differ- 
ing, to  be  sure,  in  some  essentials.  Professor  Snouck 
Hurgronje,26  indeed,  looks  hopefully  towards  the  future. 
He  believes  that  an  understanding  between  Islam  and  the 
modern  world  (which  is  the  Western  world)  is  possible, 
though  he  does  not  tell  us  what  this  understanding  will  be. 
He  resents  the  implication  of  Kipling's  poetical  despair, 

East  is  East,  and  West  is  West, 
And  never  the  twain  shall  meet, 

and  regards  it  as  "  almost  a  blasphemy  "  so  far  as  the 
Moslem  world,  which  he  knows  so  well,  is  concerned. 
And  yet  one  cannot  see  how  Islamic  (which  is  Oriental) 
culture  can  yield  to  Western  influences  beyond  a  certain 
limit  without  entering  upon  a  distintegrating  process. 

This  from  many  points  of  view  would  be  regrettable. 
After  all,  are  we  not  in  danger  of  over-emphasizing  the 
value  of  unity  which  may  lead  to  a  dull  uniformity?  Our 
aim  should  rather  be  a  unity  of  ideals,  while  recognizing 
that  there  are  various  paths  leading  to  these  ideals. 
Mohammedan  culture,  tied  to  Islamic  beliefs,  is  one  of 
these  paths,  mapped  out  by  the  course  of  history  in 
Eastern  lands.  The  failure  of  Islam  to  find  a  footing 
in  Western  Europe  or  in  this  country  is  a  significant  in- 
dication of  its  limitation,  while  responding  instinctively 
to  the  Eastern  outlook  on  life.  Looking  on  Islam  as 
an  expression  of  the  Eastern  mood,  it  seems  safe  to  pre- 

m  Mohammedanism,  p.  177. 

242 


MOHAMMEDANISM 

diet  that  it  will  disappear  only  with  the  eclipse  of  the 
civilization  of  which  it  forms  an  integral  part.  One  may 
conceive  of  a  complete  conquest  of  the  East  by  the  West 
without  a  disappearance  of  Eastern  civilization  or  the 
extinction  of  the  Oriental  spirit — so  totally  different  from 
its  Occidental  counterpart. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  Koran,  best  English  translation  by  E.  H.  Palmer,  in  The  Sacred 
Books  of  the  East,  vols.  6  and  9,  Oxford,  1880. 

C.  SNOUCK  HURGRONJE:    Mohammedanism,  New  York,  1916. 

C  SNOUCK  HURGRONJE:  Mekka,  The  Hague,  1888,  2  vols.  and  port- 
folio of  Illustrations. 

D.  S.  MARGOLIOUTH  :  Early  Development  of  Mohammedanism,  Lon- 

don, 1914. 

D.  S.  MARGOLIOUTH  :  Mohammed  and  the  Rise  of  Islam,  New  York, 
1905. 

IGNAZ  GOLDZIHER:  Mohammed  and  Islam,  translated  from  the  Ger- 
man by  Mrs.  L.  H.  Seelye,  Yale  Press,  1917.  (Corrected  edition 
to  be  issued  in  1918.) 

TRAUGOTT  MANN:  Der  Islam:  Einst  und  Jetzt,  Leipzig,  1914  (elab- 
orately illustrated). 

RICHARD  F.  BURTON:  Personal  Narrative  of  a  Pilgrimage  to  Al- 
Medinah  and  Meccah  (many  editions). 

T.  W.  ARNOLD:  The  Preaching  of  Islam,  second  edition,  London, 
1914.  An  admirable  survey  of  the  spread  of  Islam  throughout 
the  world  and  its  present  status. 

The  Mohammedan  World  of^  To-day  (papers  on  present-day  con- 
ditions by  Christian  Missionaries),  New  York,  1906. 


343 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 
BY  WALTER  WOODBURN  HYDE 

IN  this  chapter  it  is  my  task  to  treat  the  first  of  the 
historical  religions  which  grew  up  on  European  soil- 
that  of  the  Greeks.  In  rgany  fundamentals  of  its  de- 
veloped form  it  differed  from  the  religions  already 
treated,  although  it  was  profoundly  influenced  through- 
out its  history  by  the  religious  ideas  of  the  near  Orient, 
especially  Egypt.  The  record  is  a  long  and  varied  one, 
for  Greek  religion  continued  on  the  higher  plane  of  an- 
thropomorphic polytheism  for  a  period  of  at  least  two 
thousand  years,  back  of  which  stretched  long  ages  of  a 
pre-anthropomorphic  past.  During  its  whole  evolution 
it  was  quite  unchecked  by  any  tradition  of  revelation  or 
by  sacerdotal  dogma.  Jt  adapted  itself  easily  to  all  the 
changes  in  the  social,  political  and  intellectual  history  of 
the  most  gifted  of  peoples,  continually  assimilating  new 
and  foreign  ideas,  and  in  its  later  periods  it  was  pro- 
foundly influenced  by  the  greatest  poets,  philosophers  and 
artists.  It  was,  in  fact,  part  and  parcel  of  Greek  civiliza- 
tion and  outlook  on  life  and  it  shows  the  same  mobility, 
the  same  love  of  freedom  and  capability  of  progress  which 
we  see  in  all  phases  of  Greek  culture, — characteristics  in 
general  absent  from  the  Oriental  religions,  which  tended 
to  crystallize  early  into  fixed  and  dogmatic  types. 

GENERAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

At  the  outset,  before  entering  upon  a  historical  ac- 
count of  this  religion,  I  will  indicate  a  few  of  these  char- 
acteristics of  the  developed  form  which  it  assumed  in  the 
Classical  period  of  Greece.  The  first  thing  to  strike  us 

-244 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

is  the  absence  of  many  ideas  common  to  most  of  the 
Eastern  religions.  Whereas  these  generally  emphasized 
certain  dogmas,  Greek  religion  was  primarily  a  matter 
not  of  belief  at  all,  but  of  practice.  The  Greeks  had  no 
dogmas,  no  creeds,  no  sacred  writings.  Their  religion 
had  no  founder  and  never  felt  the  need  of  a  reformer. 
They  had  no  idea  of  any  revelation  of  the  divine  will  to 
men  except  in  particular  instances,  and  their  religion 
never  pretended  to  judge  the  lives  of  men  from  an  ethical 
standpoint ;  it  acted  far  more  as  a  stimulus  than  as  a  re- 
straint to  their  consciences.  It  left  little  room,  therefore, 
for  a  Hebrew  prophet  or  an  inspired  preacher  or  teacher. 
The  Greek  gods  were  not  looked  upon  as  holy  nor  omnipo- 
tent ;  they  were  removed  but  a  little  way  in  character  and 
power  from  mortals.  The  idea  of  deifying  living  men, 
which  assumed  such  proportions  in  the  later  centuries, 
was  itself  an  evidence  of  the  almost  human  character  of 
these  gods.  The  idea  that  the  gods  cared  for  men  was  a 
late  conception.  There  were,  to  be  sure,  certain  hymns 
to  the  gods,  like  the  so-called  Homeric  Hymns,  and  there 
were  prayer  formulas  for  special  occasions,  like  the  rain- 
prayer  of  the  Athenians,  along  with  elaborate  rituals  at 
various  shrines  for  certain  festivals  and  expiations  for 
public  and  private  use.  Perhaps  certain  views  of  the  God- 
head and  versions  of  legends  about  the  gods  and  heroes 
might  enjoy  exceptional  authority,  stich  as  would  justify 
their  being  called,  in  a  very  qualified  sense,  orthodox.  But 
even  if,  in  this  sense,  Homer  and  Hesiod  were  repre- 
sentative of  Greek  orthodoxy,  their  poems  never  formed 
a  Bible;  nothing  was  systematized  nor  compiled  in  writ- 
ing even  for  a  single  state;  the  priesthood  was  never 
hereditary,  as  were  those  of  the  Brahmans  and  Egyptians, 
and,  furthermore^  the  priests  never  had  any  office  of  in- 
struction or  exhortation. 

This  absence  of  a  founder,  sacred  writings,  and  uni- 
form priesthood  resulted  in  the  extreme  freedom  of  Greek 

245 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

religion.  This  was  merely  a  reflection  of  Greek  political 
freedom.  The  contrast  between  the  physical  features  of 
the  Balkan  peninsula,  in  which  Hellenic  civilization 
evolved,  and  those  of  Egypt  and  Mesopotamia,  has  often 
been  made.  Whereas  the  valleys  of  the  Nile  and  Eu- 
phrates, unbroken  by  natural  boundaries  and  enjoying  the 
same  climate  and  products,  were  predestined  by  their 
configuration  to  become  not  only  cradles  of  culture,  but 
early  to  be  united  into  powerful  state^which  developed 
a  uniformity  of  culture  largely  excluding  change,  Greece, 
on  the  other  hand,  broken  up  into  valleys  by  intersecting 
ranges  of  hills  and  surrounded  on  three  sides  by  the  sea, 
whose  gulfs  and  bays  penetrated  far  into  the  land  and 
made  natural  ways  of  communication,  was  predestined  to 
just  the  opposite — variety  of  climate,  products  and  occu- 
pations, and  consequently  had  a  different  history.  The 
City-State  grew  up  to  live  its  own  life  in  its  own  sur- 
roundings. This  political  particularism  was  nowhere 
better  reflected  than  in  Greek  religion.  As  each  City- 
State  had  its  own  constitution,  just  so  it  had  its  own 
worship  and  cycle  of  gods.  As  there  was  no  political 
centralization,  no  national  state  until  the  latest  days,  there 
was  no  national  religion.  Instead  there  was  a  great  di- 
versity of  cults  in  various  towns  and  the  only  authority 
in  religious  matters  was  the  local  shrine  tradition.  To 
be  sure,  a  community  of  beliefs  and  practices  among  neigh- 
boring states  might  at  times  result  in  larger  units,  religious 
confederacies  or  amphictyonies  around  a  common  shrine. 
A  few  such  shrines,  like  those  of  Apollo  at  Delphi  and 
Zeus  at  Dodona,  might  in  course  of  time  become  recognized 
by  all  Greeks  and  vitally  influence  their  religious  and 
moral  ideas.  Such  unions  were  always  exceptional  and 
seldom  made  for  much  unity  of  ideas  or  conformity  in 
externals.  Everything  in  Greece — physical  conditions, 
differences  in  blood,  in  dialect,  in  culture — tended  to  pro- 
duce variety  and  idiosyncrasy  in  states  and  individuals 

246 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

and  these  were  all  reflected  in  religion.  However,  I 
must  add  that  amid  all  this  local  variation  there  was  a 
certain  uniformity  of  religious  psychology  which  uncon- 
sciously tended  toward  similar  beliefs  and  practices,  and, 
consequently,  in  a  summary  account  of  Greek  religion,  we 
can  loosely  speak  as  if  there  were  a  uniform  system  more 
or  less  true  of  all  Greece,  even  if  it  does  not  apply  in 
detail  to  any  one  state.  As  a  whole,  then,  the  religion  of 
the  Greeks  had  a  physiognomy  of  its  own,  very  different 
on  the  one  hand  from  -that  of  the  Vedic  Hindus,  or  that 
of  the  Romans  on  the  other. 

Another  characteristic  was  the  marked  tendency  in 
Greece  to  subordinate  the  priest  to  the  civil  magistrate. 
Priests  were  appointed  as  state  officials;  temples  were 
built  and  maintained  by  state  moneys  and  religious  law 
was  administered  by  state  courts.  Thus  the  priests,  chosen 
by  lot  or  elected  for  a  time  by  the  community,  were  in  no 
sense  the  final  authority  in  religious  matters ;  they  merely 
carried  out  the  vote  of  the  assembly  under  the  direction 
of  the  magistrates,  so  that  religious  authority  was  really 
vested  in  the  people  and  no  Greek  City- State  ever  became 
theocratic.  The  priests  were  in  no  sense  teachers,  but 
were  bound  only  to  maintain  and  perform  the  traditional 
ritual  service  at  the  altar  they  served.  This  shrine  ritual 
was  the  result  of  centuries  of  evolution,  constantly  chang- 
ing as  it  passed  from  generation  to  generation,  ever  tend- 
ing toward  unity  of  belief  in  the  worshipers,  but  never 
compelling  it.  It  could  not  stand  for  long  in  the  way  of 
secular  advance  nor  moral  progress.  On  the  contrary, 
speculation  and  progress  were  looked  upon  as  divine 
attributes.  As  Farnell  says :  "  The  religion  of  Hellas 
penetrated  the  whole  life  of  the  people,  but  rather  as  a 
servant  than  as  a  master."  Apart  from  the  public  wor- 
ship there  were  many  mystic  cults  where  newer  and  more 
advanced  ideas  might  be  taught,  thus  breaking  the  bar- 
riers of  tribal  and  civic  cults.  Consequently  every  Greek 

247 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

had  great  latitude  in  his  beliefs.  We  may  infer  from  a 
remark  of  the  Platonic  Socrates  that  the  Athenians  in 
general  cared  little  what  a  man  believed  so  long  as  he 
did  not  proselyte.  Aristophanes  could  ridicule  and  Eurip- 
ides could  doubt  the  popular  beliefs;  but  no  one  could 
openly  proclaim  disbelief  in  the  existence  of  the  gods  or 
refuse  to  join  in  the  public  worship.  As  religious  beliefs 
were  never  settled,  there  was  no  danger  of  a  Greek  being 
cast  out  of  the  synagogue  or  the  priesthood  for  holding 
views  different  from  those  of  other  people.  He  merely 
had  to  refrain  from  publicly  preaching  doctrines  which 
might  be  construed  as  interfering  with  the  orders  of  the 
State.  Religious  persecution,  then,  occupies  little  space 
in  the  story  of  the  Greeks.  Before  Alexander's  time  it 
was  dangerous  to  introduce  foreign  cults  into  Greece,  not 
only  because  they  were  at  variance  with  the  recognized 
State  worship,  but  also  because  their  orgiastic  spirit  was 
repellent  to  Greek  taste.  Anaxagoras,  the  philosopher, 
was  tried  for  doubting  the  gods  and  Protagoras,  the 
sophist,  was  banished,  and,  worst  of  all,  Socrates  was  put 
to  death  on  the  ground  of  ridiculing  them.  However, 
these  were  all  exceptional  cases  and  none  of  them  can  be 
shown  to  have  been  wholly  inspired  by  religious  feelings. 
The  slaying  of  Socrates  was  unique  and,  whatever  may 
be  said,  was  a  stain  on  the  history  of  Athens,  entirely 
out  of  place  in  a  city  so  vaunting  of  its  freedom.  To  us 
Socrates  seems  a  noble  character,  the  greatest  glory  of 
the  city  which  saw  fit  to  kill  him.  Dogmatic  intolerance, 
however,  had  little  to  do  with  this  crime,  which  appears  to 
have  been  mainly  political.  He  was  not  a  thorough-going 
democrat  and  did  not  believe  in  the  "bean";  anything 
savoring  of  oligarchy  in  399  B.C.,  only  a  few  years  after 
the  expulsion  of  the  Thirty  Tyrants,  was  odious  and  this 
doubtless  aroused  the  suspicions  of  his  judges.  But  the  im- 
mediate cause  of  so  strange  a  verdict  may  be  found  rather 
in  the  circumstances  of  his  trial — the  independent  bearing 

248 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

of  the  old  man,  his  flat  refusal  to  change  his  mode  of  life, 
his  contempt  of  resorting  to  the  usual  appeals  to  pity, 
and,  above  all,  the  insolence  of  his  counter  penalty — to  be 
kept  for  the  rest  of  his  life  at  the  Prytaneum  at  the  public 
expense  as  the  honored  guest  and  benefactor  of  Athens, — 
in  short,  his  careless,  defiant  attitude,  which  fanned  into 
flame  the  old  embers  of  political  distrust. 

In  the  Classical  period  the  chief  thing  to  impress  the 
worshiper  was  the  pomp  and  ceremony  of  the  public 
worship — the  beautiful  temples,  the  artistic  cult  statues, 
the  stately  processions,  and  the  solemn  ritual.  In  all  this 
we  see  the  characteristics  of  a  people  endowed  beyond  all 
others  with  a  sense  of  the  beautiful  and  a  capacity  to  enjoy 
life,  who  worshiped  gods  in  whom  they  saw  their  own 
ideals.  Consider  the  glorious  frieze  of  the  Parthenon  and 
imagine  how  in  the  days  of  Pericles  the  great  Panathenaic 
procession,  the  most  brilliant  worship  with  which  Athena 
was  honored  at  Athens,  moved  in  stately  wise  from  the 
lower  city  up  through  the  Propylsea  to  the  Acropolis 
and  then  along  both  sides  of  this  most  beautiful  of  all 
Greek  temples  to  its  eastern  front.  Such  a  procession, 
leading  beasts  for  sacrifice  and  carrying  the  sacred  robe 
of  the  virgin  goddess,  which  had  been  woven  by  chosen 
matrons  and  maidens,  was  representative  of  all  that  was 
noblest  in  Athenian  worship.  Archons  and  lesser  magis- 
trates, bands  of  men  and  youths  chosen  for  their  beauty, 
maidens  of  the  noblest  families  carrying  sacrificial  vessels 
and  implements,  representatives  of  allied  and  tributary 
states,  resident  aliens,  musicians  and  attendants — all  took 
part,  escorted  by  chariots  and  knights  with  military  pomp. 
In  their  midst,  at  the  sacrifice  and  offering  of  the  robe, 
sat  the  invisible  gods  in  assembly,  the  guests  of  Athena. 
No  god  was  ever  worshiped  more  gloriously  than  by  this 
galaxy  of  beautiful  forms  moving  along  with  its  wealth 
of  color  in  the  luminous  atmosphere  of  the  city  of  the 

249 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

violet  crown  amid  the  immortal  monuments  of   those 
mortal  men. 

Beauty  was  not  the  only  feature  of  Greek  worship,  for 
joyousness  was  also  there.  Religion  rested  lightly  on  the 
shoulders  of  the  Greek.  He  was  not  oppressed  by  any 
deep  sense  of  sin;  he  thought  well  of  himself  and  not 
too  well  of  his  gods.  If  he  only  avoided  the  graver 
offenses  against  morality  and  especially  the  amour  propre 
of  his  gods,  he  had  little  to  fear.  The  ever-recurring 
festivals,  celebrated  with  music  and  processions,  accom- 
panied by  theatrical,  gymnastic  or  orchestral  competitions, 
were  real  holidays.  Even  if  the  opening  days  of  some 
of  these  festivals,  like  the  Spartan  Hyacinthia,  were  sad, 
they  generally  ended  with  feasting  and  dancing.  Sacri- 
fices and  prayers  were  intended  not  so  much  for  expiation 
as  for  asking  and  acknowledging  blessings  received  from 
the  gods.  When  in  sickness  or  danger  the  Greek  made 
his  vows,  and  on  recovery  or  escape  he  religiously  paid 
them.  Plato  tells  us  he  prayed  morning  and  evening  and 
concluded  every  meal  with  hymn  and  prayer ;  but  of  course 
such  devotions  would  become  as  perfunctory  to  the  Greeks 
as  our  table  blessings  have  become  to  us. 

The  Greek,  then,  delighted  in  the  beautiful  and  joyous 
side  of  worship,  but  we  must  not  fall  into  the  mistake  of 
concluding  that  his  religion  was  all  beauty  and  joy,  just 
because  that  side  of  it  meets  us  most  often  in  his  literature 
and  art.  As  sunlight  cannot  exist  without  shadow,  Greek 
worship  also  had  a  darker  side.  Calamities  would  come 
upon  individuals  and  states  and  these  would  be  laid  at  the 
door  of  malignant  or  offended  deities.  Great  criminals 
were  followed  then  as  now  by  the  avenging  furies  of  con- 
science. There  was  also  much  in  Greek  religion  that  was 
repulsive  and  ugly.  Many  lower  forms  were  retained, 
even  if  moribund,  to  the  latest  times  side  by  side  with 
higher  ones.  These  cannot  be  ascribed  to  Oriental  origin, 
for  nothing  is  more  Greek  than  some  of  the  grossest  of 

250 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

them.  Nor  is  it  reasonable  to  class  as  foreign  everything 
in  Greek  civilization  which  clashes  with  our  ideal  of  the 
Greeks.  Greek  mythology  contained  many  repulsive  ele- 
ments, which  were  constantly  denounced  by  ancient 
writers  like  Pindar,  Euripides  and  Plato.  Many  of  these 
beliefs  must  have  had  a  deleterious  effect  on  morality. 
The  forms  of  worship  and  the  sacred  formulae  were,  how- 
ever, in  the  main  pure  and  refined.  There  was  never 
any  orgiastic  spirit  in  Greek  religion.  There  was  no  sex- 
ual defilement  in  the  early  temples,  no  licentiousness  in  the 
"  sacred  marriage  "  at  Eleusis  or  elsewhere,  even  if  the 
Church  Fathers  insinuated  it.  There  is  little  evidence  to 
show  that  the  worship  of  Aphrodite  was,  generally  speak- 
ing, any  less  decorous  than  that  of  other  goddesses.  Her 
statues  were  draped  down  to  the  time  of  Praxiteles  and 
the  Hellenistic  sculptures  which  realistically  portray  the 
physical  charms  of  the  Phrynes  of  the  time  are  no  more 
concerned  with  the  real  religion  of  the  Greeks  than  the 
fleshy  voluptuous  Magdalenes  of  Rubens  are  with 
Christianity.  We  hear  much  of  sanctified  prostitution  in 
her  honor,  but  it  was  mostly  late  and  confined  to  a  few 
temples,  as  those  of  Cyprus  and  Eryx,  Cythera  and 
Corinth.  Phallic  ritual  was  rare  and  for  the  most  part 
confined  to  vegetation  cults, and  the  philosophical  litera- 
ture of  Greece  made  little  protest  against  it.  In  short, 
if  Greek  religion  had  a  dark  side,  it  was  never  prominent. 
Great  artists,  thinkers,  and  poets  found  deep  meaning 
in  the  popular  worship.  Such  minds  as  ^Eschylus, 
Sophocles,  Socrates  and  Plato  were  deeply  religious  and 
found  both  truth  and  comfort  in  the  people's  faith.  Aris- 
totle said  the  name  "  father  "  applied  to  Zeus  included 
the  idea  of  his  loving  care  of  men.  St.  Paul  (Acts  18: 
28)  quoted  a  late  Greek  poet,  Aratus,  to  the  effect  that 
"  we  are  his  offspring."  The  Stoic  Cleanthes,  in  his  beau- 
tiful hymn,  says  much  the  same  words — even  if  he  meant 
thereby  that  human  reason  was  a  fragment  of  the  divine. 

251 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

The  humanness  of  the  gods  and  the  divineness  of  men 
were  never  more  clearly  felt  than  by  the  Greeks.  While 
the  Hebrew  taught  that  man  was  made  in  God's  image, 
the  Greek  made  his  gods  in  the  image  of  men.  Where 
men  are  mortal  gods,  the  gods  are  merely  immortal  men. 
With  all  the  freedom  and  formalism  of  Greek  worship, 
the  question  has  often  been  raised  as  to  whether  the 
Greeks  were  really  religious.  If  religion  consists  in  a 
belief  in  a  power  or  powers  higher  than  men;  if  it  is  a 
longing  for  protection  and  sympathy  from  them,  and  if 
prayer  and  sacrifice  and  the  wish  to  propitiate  them  are 
religious  acts,  the  Greeks  were  truly  religious.  The  mate- 
rial of  religion  in  its  two  departments  of  theology  and 
ritual  was  much  the  same  in  Greece  as  elsewhere — sacri- 
fice and  offering,  prayer  and  hymn,  propitiation  and 
thanksgiving,  purification  and  expiation,  magical  rites, 
belief  in  ghosts  and  demons,  ancestor  and  clan  worship 
and  the  formation  of  a  pantheon.  These  elements  are  the 
common  stock  of  religion  among  all  peoples  of  similar 
degrees  of  culture ;  what  was  characteristic  of  the  Greeks 
was  not  the  material,  but  the  way  in  which  it  was  handled. 
Where  the  Australian  stopped,  the  Greek  passed  on. 
Every  Greek  town  had  more  shrines  than  a  modern  city 
has  churches.  You  remember  how  Paul's  spirit  was 
provoked  within  him  as  he  beheld  Athens  full  of  idols 
and  found  the  Athenians  "  somewhat  superstitious " 
(Acts  16:  1 6,  23).  He  came  upon  altars  not  only  to 
many  gods  but  to  an  "  Unknown  God  "  erected  in  Athens 
as  elsewhere  to  correct  any  possible  omission.  The  Greek 
calendar  was  at  first  invented  merely  to  determine  the 
festivals.  Greek  religious  imagination  was  continually 
tending  to  become  the  impulse  to  two  other  forms  of 
activity — art,  both  literary  and  plastic,  and  philosophy. 
Greek  art  was  always  the  handmaid  of  religion  and  would 
have  satisfied  even  Tolstoy's  definition.  Greek  literature 
was  saturated  with  religion.  The  drama  was  religious 

252 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

in  origin  and  development.  Greek  philosophy  was  always 
theological  in  character.  Gree,k  law  was  religious  in  its 
origin  and  development.  Even  the  athletic  games  were 
religious  in  origin  and  spirit,  always  associated  with  the 
worship  of  gods  and  heroes,  and  were  among  the  strong- 
est Pan-Hellenic  influences,  making  not  only  for  nation- 
ality, but  also  for  a  broader  religion  than  that  of  tribe 
or  city. 

THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  STUDY  OF  GREEK  RELIGION 

The  scientific  study  of  Greek  religion  as  distinct  from 
mythology  is  very  recent;  it  may  almost  be  said  to  be 
the  work  of 'the  last  generation  of  scholars.  Only  through 
the  recent  development  of  anthropology  and  comparative 
religion  has  it  become  possible  finally  to  classify  it  in 
the  world's  creeds  and  appreciate  its  importance  for  the 
history  of  culture.  It  seems  strange  that  the  religions 
of  India  and  China — to  say  nothing  of  those  of  savage 
races — should  have  been  studied  so  long  to  the  almost 
total  neglect  of  the  religions  of  Greece  and  Rome.  Even 
yet,  most  people,  to  whom  the  superiority  of  Greek 
poetry,  philosophy  and  art  is  an  axiom,  doubt  whether 
the  study  of  Greek  religion  is  really  worth  while.  Through 
its  association  with  a  romantic,  though  not  always  edify- 
ing mythology,  it  has  been  looked  upon  as  an  inferior 
product  of  the  gifted  Greeks.  Yet  we  know  now  that  it 
has  the  same  beauty  and  imagination  which  we  have  long 
recognized  in  other  phases  of  Greek  civilization  and  that 
the  Hellenic  spirit  shows  itself  here  quite  as  worthily 
as  elsewhere.  Apart  from  any  such  general  considera- 
tion, there  are  also  very  definite  reasons  why  we  should 
study  the  religion  of  the  Greeks.  The  student  of  re- 
ligious origins  finds  in  it  material  which,  for  variety  and 
detail,  has  no  equal  in  any  other  religion.  The  student 
of  history  finds  that  in  this  phase  of  her  culture,  as  in 
all  others,  Greece  began  at  the  beginning  and  struggled 

253 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

slowly  upwards  to  the  mountain  tops.  During  its  long 
course  over  centuries  Greek  religion  never  suffered  from 
any  internal  revolution  so  that  the  deposits  of  earlier  ages 
were  never  entirely  obliterated,  but  to  the  last  these  im- 
prints of  the  successive  periods  of  culture  through  which 
the  Hellenic  race  passed  were  preserved;  thus  their  re- 
ligion reveals  to  us  more  clearly  than  anything  else  the 
evolution  of  the  Greeks  from  savagery.  As  Gilbert  Mur- 
ray says :  "  There  is  hardly  any  horror  of  primitive  super- 
stition of  which  we  cannot  find  some  distant  trace  in  our 
Greek  record.  There  is  hardly  any  height  of  spiritual 
thought  attained  in  the  world  that  has  not  its  archetype 
or  its  echo  in  the  stretch  of  Greek  literature  that  lies 
between  Thales  and  St.  Paul."  1 

Lastly,  we  must  not  forget  that  the  potency  of  this 
religion  did  not  end  with  the  greatness  of  Greece,  but  con- 
tinued on  into  later  Europe.  It  was  not  blotted  out  by 
Christianity.  On  the  contrary,  whatever  real  power  it 
had,  passed  over  into  the  ideas  and  forms  of  our  own 
religion  to  such  an  extent  that  one  could  maintain  that 
Greek  religion  has  exercised  indirectly  as  much  influence 
on  the  various  phases  of  modern  religious  life  as  mythol- 
ogy has  on  modern  literatures.  The  influence  of  the  re- 
ligion of  Greece  on  Christianity  is  too  complex  a  subject 
to  be  more  than  hinted  at  in  this  connection.  That  ancient 
rites  should  have  persisted  in  the  Eastern  Church  under 
the  cover  of  the  new  religion,  and  that  ancient  gods  and 
heroes  should  reappear  as  saints,  is  not  so  surprising  when 
we  reflect  on  the  summary  way  in  which  Constantine 
established  the  new  faith.  It  was  not  difficult  to  convert 
the  Parthenon  into  a  Christian  church,  when  the  virgin 
goddess  of  wisdom  was  supplanted  first  by  St.  Sophia  and 
later  by  Mary.  Similarly,  it  was  easy  to  replace  Apollo 
by  St.  George  and  Poseidon  by  St.  Nicholas,  the  patron 
saint  of  sailors.  Nor  should  we  be  surprised  when  we 

1  Four  Stages  of  Greek  Religion,  1912,  p.  16. 

254 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

see  an  old  Greek  rite  celebrated  now  by  a  Greek  priest. 
The  influence  of  Greek  theology  and  philosophy  on  Chris- 
tian belief  can  be  directly  traced  in  the  changes  wrought 
in  the  concept  of  Christianity,  when  it  had  to  be  cast  into 
a  new  mould  to  meet  the  changed  atmosphere  from  Pales- 
tine to  Europe.  Though  the  influence  of  the  old  ritual 
on  the  plastic  ritual  of  the  early  church  cannot  be  traced 
so  easily,  it  may  be  said  in  general  that  the  simplicity 
of  the  primitive  Christian  sacrament  gradually  had  given 
way  by  the  fifth  century  to  the  richly  developed  ritual  of 
the  church,  which  was  only  an  evolution  of  ancient  Greek 
rites. 

Miss  Harrison  has  shown  why  this  study  has  been 
neglected  until  these  later  years.  In  the  first  place  it  was 
not  studied  as  a  whole  but  in  only  one  phase — mythology. 
As  Greek  myths  were  necessary  to  an  understanding  of 
Greek  literature,  the  confusion  between  mythology  and 
religion  was  fatal  to  a  proper  appreciation  of  the  latter. 
As  every  reader  of  the  classics  learned  about  the  Greek 
gods  through  the  myths,  it  was  easy  to  think  that  mythol- 
ogy and  religion  were  identical,  though,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  there  is  little  connection  between  them.  Myths, 
however  beautiful,  can  hardly  have  inspired  religious 
sentiments.  Sometimes  they  reflect  the  ritual  and  again 
they  were  invented  to  explain  it  and  thus  contain  im- 
portant cult  ideas.  But  in  general  Greek  myths  were 
utterly  irresponsible;  poets  could  select  or  change  them 
at  will  to  suit  their  immediate  purpose.  Thus  in  the  Iliad 
the  Apollo  of  Book  I,  worshiped  by  Chryses,  and  the 
Apollo  of  Book  XVI,  who  wounds  Patroclus  from  behind 
on  the  field  of  battle,  have  little  in  common.  Myths  fre- 
quently fell  below  the  level  of  the  current  worship  which 
was  always  free  of  the  impurities  which  we  see  in  the 
former.  Again,  the  mythology  which  was  studied  by 
classical  students  was  looked  upon  as  ancillary  to  litera- 
ture and  not  to  religion.  Moreover,  it  was  distorted  by 

255 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

Alexandrine  and  Roman  literature.  It  is  not  so  long  ago 
that  scholars  called  the  Greek  gods  by  Latin  names,  and 
the  mistake  still  keeps  up  among  lovers  of  classical  litera- 
ture. We  now  know  that  even  if  Zeus  and  Jupiter, 
Athena  and  Minerva,  were  akin,  they  were  not  identical. 
Scholars  have  by  now  largely  corrected  the  nomenclature, 
but  we  are  still  prone  to  give  Alexandrine  or  Roman 
natures  to  the  Greek  gods,  making  them  the  ornamental 
gods  of  an  artificial  literature.  We  no  longer  call  Eros 
Cupid,  but  we  do  think  of  him  as  a  naughty  little  cherub 
with  bow  and  arrows,  just  as  the  Alexandrine  poets  and 
Ovid  conceived  him.  Such  an  idea  would  surely  have 
astonished  the  worshipers  of  his  own  city  of  Thespiae, 
where  his  most  ancient  image  was  an  un wrought  stone. 
We  now  know  also  that  Dionysus  was  not  a  beautiful  god 
of  wine,  but  an  ancient  tree-spirit  once  worshiped  as  a 
pillar,  and  that  the  Sirens,  instead  of  being  bewitching 
mermaids,  were  curious  bird-demons  with  women's  heads. 

RECENT  ACCESSIONS   TO   OUR   KNOWLEDGE  OF  GREEK 
RELIGION 

A  change  has  come.  The  religions  of  Greece  and 
Rome  are  now  scientifically  studied  and  are  no  longer 
looked  upon  as  identical,  but  almost  as  different  as  any 
two  religions  can  be.  Greek  religion  is  no  longer  studied 
for  the  purposes  of  mythology  only,  but  as  an  important 
factor  in  the  spiritual  history  of  the  race,  an  integral  part 
of  Greek  civilization.  However,  it  does  not  owe  every- 
thing to  a  reform  in  the  methods  of  study,  but  also  to 
recent  accessions  of  material  through  archaeological  in- 
vestigations. Instead  of  now  going  to  Alexandrine  or 
Roman  literature  to  learn  about  the  Greek  gods,  we  supple- 
ment the  knowledge  we  gain  from  the  Greek  writers  by 
a  study  of  every  particle  of  evidence  unearthed  by  the 
spade — vase  paintings,  wall  paintings,  statues,  bronzes, 
terra-cottas,  cult  objects,  inscriptions.  Especially  have 

256 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

the  earlier  periods  of  Greek  religion  been  enriched  by  ex- 
cavations on  prehistoric  sites.  The  revelation  of  a  pre- 
Hellenic  culture  in  the  ^gean  area,  due,  in  the  .first 
instance,  to  the  discoveries  of  Schliemann  beginning  in 
the  seventies  at  Troy,  Tiryns,  Mycenae  and  elsewhere  and 
culminating  in  those  of  Evans  and  others  carried  on  since 
1900  on  the  island  of  Crete,  has)  revolutionized  our 
knowledge  of  prehistoric  Greece  and  added  new  and 
striking  chapters  not  only  to  Greek  history  but  to  Greek 
religion.  We  can  no  longer  call  the  Greeks  young  in  com- 
parison with  the  Oriental  peoples,  nor  can  we  any  longer 
indulge  our  fancy  into  believing  that  Greek  civilization 
was  a  thing  unexampled  in  history,  rising  almost  at  a 
bound  out  o-f  nothing  to  its  heights  of  splendor,  as  the 
walls  of  Ilium  were  fabled  to  have  risen  beneath  the 
hands  of  their  divine  builders,  for  we  now  know  that 
obscure  millennia  preceded  its  supposedly  sudden  bloom. 
The  recent  discoveries  in  Crete  have  profoundly  changed 
all  our  ideas  of  the  antiquity  of  the  earliest  European 
culture.  Not  even  have  the  remarkable  discoveries  of  the 
last  generation  made  in  Egypt  and  in  Mesopotamia  re- 
vealed to  us  a  world  so  new  and  unexpected  as  that  dis- 
closed to  us  in  the  palaces  of  Crete.  To  classical  students 
of  twenty  years  ago  Crete  was  hardly  more  than  a  land 
of  legendary  heroes.  Many  stories  told  us  of  Cnossus,  of 
Minos's  realm,  of  his  Labyrinth  and  its  strange  prisoner 
the  Minotaur,  of  Theseus  and  Ariadne,  of  Daedalus  and 
Icarus,  the  first  aeronauts.  Historians,  like  Grote,  had 
looked  upon  the  period  between  these  legends  and  the 
historical  age  as  a  great  gulf  of  darkness  behind  which 
we  could  never  hope  to  go.  Greek  history  began  with 
the  first  Olympiad;  even  the  return  of  the  Heraclidre 
and  the  Dorian  invasion  were  looked  upon  as  chiefly 
fanciful.  Homer's  poems  were  read  because  of  their 
transcendent  poetic  value,  but  the  scenes  which  he  de- 
scribes were  supposed  to  be  imaginary  projections  on  the 

25? 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

past  of  his  own  age,  behind  which  lay  the  wasteland  of 
legend.  When,  in  1878,  Schliemann  discovered  the  tombs 
of  Mycenae  he  naively  imagined  that  he  had  found  the 
actual  skeletons  of  Agamemnon  and  Clytemnestra  and 
beheld  their  features  in  the  gold- foil  death  masks  found 
with  them,  and  that  he  had  recovered  the  very  cup  out  of 
which  Nestor  had  drunk,  the  pigeons  still  intact  on  the 
handles.  This  arouses  our  humor  now,  for  we  know  that 
these  were  the  tombs  of  the  first  kings  of  Mycenae,  who, 
perhaps,  had  come  from  Crete  long  before  when  the  town 
was  built.  But  the  historicity  of  the  golden  court  of  the 
Atridae  cannot  be  disposed  of  so  easily.  Walter  Leaf, 
in  his  very  recent  book  on  Homer,  finds  it  reasonable  to 
look  upon  the  Homeric  heroes  as  historical  characters 
instead  of  "  faded  gods,"  and  believes  it  quite  possible 
that  the  quarrel  of  Agamemnon  and  Achilles,  as  staged  in 
the  Iliad,  was  an  actual  incident  which  took  place  in  the 
Achaean  camp  and  that  it  may  have  seriously  affected  the 
campaign  against  Ilium.1  a 

Though  Schliemann's  discoveries  produced  in  his  day 
more  wonder  than  scientific  results,  we  now  know  that  he 
proved  the  existence  of  a  civilization  which  was  the  origi- 
nal of  Homer's  descriptions,  though  far  older,  for  the 
divine  poet  sang  of  a  golden  past.  It  was  not,  however, 
until  Evans  and  Halbherr,  followed  by  scholars  of  Eng- 
land, Italy,  and  America,  had  unearthed  the  palaces  of 
the  sea-kings  of  Crete,  that  we  discovered  that  we — 
with  more  daring  than  the  fabled  Icarus — had  flown 
right  over  the  heads,  not  only  of  the  historical  Greeks, 
but  of  Homer's  heroes  as  well,  for  we  learned  that  this 
yEgean  culture  must  have  antedated  by  many  centuries 
the  building  of  the  walls  and  galleries  of  Tiryns.  We 
then  learned  that  the  period  which  Schliemann  had  called 
Mycenaean — the  term  applied  to  the  palaces,  houses, 
tombs,  pottery,  weapons,  gems  and  ornaments  which, 

*•  Homer  and  History,  1915,  p.  29. 

258 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

wherever  found,  exhibit  a  more  or  less  striking  similarity 
to  those  laid  bare  on  the  citadel  of  Mycenae — was  merely 
the  decadence  of  a  far  richer  culture  whose  centre  was 
Crete,  and  that  behind  Homer's  pictures  were  centuries 
of  development  of  which  neither  he  nor  the  historical 
Greeks  had  any  inkling.  We  now  know  that  this  ^Egean 
civilization,  properly  so-called,  extended  over  Crete, 
Southern  Greece  and  the  isles  of  the  ^gean,  while  an- 
other, proven  by  its  pottery  to  be  different,  grew  up 
subsidiary  to  or  parallel  with  it  in  Central  and  Northern 
Greece,  at  Troy  and  on  the  island  of  Cyprus.  In  the  Late 
Bronze  Age — corresponding  to  the  "  Great  Palace " 
period  at  Cnossus  and  the  succeeding  Mycenaean  period 
of  the  mainland,  and  contemporary  with  the  XVIII 
and  XIX  Egyptian  dynasties  (c.  1600-1200  B.C.) — the 
yEgean  civilization,  radiating  from  Crete,  infljieflcfiijt 

ier_Jndep€ndf.n  U-ettto^^tTroj,  in  the  sixth  of  the 
nine  buried  cities  on  the  hill  aTHissarlik,  and  replaced  or 
overlaid  it  in  Thessaly  and  Cyprus.  The  ^Egean  culture, 
though  borrowing  much  from  Egypt  and  probably  from 
the  Hittite  peoples  of  Asia  Minor,  was  an  indigenous  one, 
evolved  among  the  primitive  dark-skinned  peoples  who 
inhabited  the  whole  eastern  basin  of  the  Mediterranean 
for  countless  centuries  before  Homer's  fair-skinned 
Achaeans  wrested  the  sovereignty  from  their  degenerate 
descendants.  A  brief  account,  therefore,  of  the  vEgean 
religious  ideas  and  practices,  as  we  learn  of  them  espe- 
cially in  Crete,  forms  a  necessary  preface  to  the  early  re- 
ligion of  the  same  Mediterranean  stock,  which  grew  up 
more  or  less  independently  on  the  mainland  of  Greece, 
where  it  formed  the  substratum  of  the  historical  Greek 
religion.  The  problems  of  this  Minoan-Mycenaean  relig- 
ion are  not  yet  ready  for  final  settlement,  but  we  can  draw 
certain  definite  conclusions  from  the  evidence  so  far  ac- 
cumulated. We  can  understand  something  of  the  ritual 
of  those  early  days  and  something  of  the  deities  to  whom 

259 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

it  was  addressed ;  but  until  the  script,  now  lying  unread  on 
the  tablets  from  the  Cretan  palaces,  shall  have  found  its 
Champollion,  we  shall  know  little  of  its  theology. 

THE  PREHISTORIC  AEGEAN  RELIGION 

One  of  the  chief  characteristics  of  this  Mediterranean 
cult  is  the  fact  that  palace  and  temple  were  not  yet  differ- 
entiated. Sacred  caves  and  gorges  were  venerated  as  the 
dwelling  of  deity,  but  the  only  religious  structures  dis- 
covered are  a  small  chapel  in  the  palace  at  Cnossus  and 
miniature  shrines  for  domestic  worship.  But  the  re- 
ligious element  in  the  frescoes  which  decorated  the  palace 
walls  tells  us  that  a  large  part  of  the  building  was  devoted 
to  cult  purposes  and  has  led  Sir  Arthur  Evans  to  believe, 
on  the  analogy  of  the  priest-king  in  the  characteristic 
Anatolian  cult  of  Cybele,  that  the  king  was  at  the  same 
time  the  high-priest. 

It  is  certain  that  the  Minoans  had  arrived  at  the  stage 
of  theism  in  very  early  days  and  their  religion  appears 
to  have  been  from  the  beginning  a  nature  cult.  They 
embodied  their  chief  concept  of  deity  in  feminine  form, 
a  sort  of  Great  Mother,  whom  the  later  Greeks  identified 
with  Rhea.  Most  scholars,  following  the  lead  of  Evans 
and  Hogarth,  have  interpreted  this  deity  as  a  nature 
goddess,  whose  care,  like  that  of  Browning's  Artemis, 
embraced  all  creatures  of  land  and  sea  during  their  earthly 
existence,  and  later  became  their  ruler  in  the  underworld. 
For  representations  of  her  on  clay  impressions  of  intaglio 
gems  from  both  Crete  and  Mycenae  show  her  crowned 
with  doves,  the  emblems  of  heaven,  while  primitive,  rude 
terra-cotta  idols  from  Gournia  and  Prinias,  and  the  group 
of  two  polychrome  faience  figurines  of  advanced  art,  dis- 
covered at  Cnossus  in  1903,  show  her  with  snakes,  the 
usual  emblems  of  the  underworld  powers.  In  these 
statuettes,  which  probably  were  the  furniture  of  a  royal 
household  shrine  of  the  end  of  the  Middle  Minoan  period 

260 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

(c.  1800-1600  B.C.),  and  which  are  among  the  most 
remarkable  that  archaeology  has  recovered  from  the  pre- 
historic ^Egean  culture,  the  Minoan  artist,  by  delicate 
modelling  and  use  of  color,  has  represented  the  goddess 
in  the  characteristic  Cretan  fashion,  with  tight  bodice, 
low  neck,  short  sleeves  and  well-shaped,  full-flounced 
skirt.  She  holds  at  arms'  length  writhing,  twisted  snakes ; 
a  spotted  serpent  curls  round  the  high  headdress  of  one 
figure,  while  a  spotted  cat  is  seated  above  a  wreath  on 
the  head  of  the  other.  In  general,  the  Cretan  deity 
appears  in  beneficent  guise ;  but  sometimes  she  has  a  more 
fearful  aspect,  as  on  a  certain  seal  impression  from  Cnos- 
sus,  where  she  is  represented  as  standing  on  a  cairn  of 
stones  with  hair  dishevelled  and  fierce  gaze,  accompanied 
by  rampant  lionesses.  It  has  generally  been  assumed  that 
when  the  later  Greeks  found  this  divinity  in  possession 
of  the  island,  they  identified  her,  in  the  various  aspects 
of  her  many-sided  nature,  with  various  deities  of  their 
pantheon — not  only  with  Rhea,  the  mother  of  the  gods, 
who  fled  to  Crete  to  bear  her  son  Zeus,  but  with  Artemis 
as  "  Lady  of  the  Wilds,"  with  Aphrodite  and  her  doves, 
with  Hera,  Demeter,  Athena  and  others.  Perhaps  a  more 
rational  interpretation  is  the  recent  one  of  H.  R.  Hall, 
who  believes  that  the  various  forms  under  which  she  is 
depicted  in  art  are  really  different  deities  of  a  Cretan 
pantheon,  and  that  even  if  these  forms  are  to  be  explained 
as  those  of  one  goddess,  they  were  popularly  regarded  as 
distinct  divinities.2 

This  mother-goddess  was  associated  with  a  satellite 
male  god,  who  is  represented  on  gems  and  frescoes  as  an 
armed  youth  with  spear  and  shield.  No  idol  of  this  god, 
who  was  evidently  the  only  male  deity  worshiped  by  the 
Minoans,  has  been  found.  When  the  Cretans  went  north, 
the  Hellenic  Zeus  best  corresponded  to  this  god,  and  when 
the  Achaean  and  Dorians  came  to  Crete,  this  native  war- 

3  JEgean  Archeology,  1915,  pp.  149  ff. 

261 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

rior  god  Velchanos,  as  the  only  representative  of  the  male 
godhead,  was  easily  identified  with  their  Zeus.  It  is  not 
difficult  for  us  to  distinguish  between  the  Aryan  Zeus  of 
the  Greeks,  the  Father-God  ruling  from  Olympus,  and 
this  Mediterranean  Zeus  of  Crete.  The  legend  of  the 
youth  of  Velchanos — how  he  was  suckled  in  the  Dictaean 
cave  by  the  goat  Amalthea,  while  the  Kouretes  danced 
around  his  cradle  and  lulled  him  to  sleep  with  martial 
clash  of  spear  and  shield,  and  how  he  was  brought  up  by 
Rhea  on  Mount  Ida — was  easily  appropriated  by  the 
Olympian  Zeus,  while  many  others,  like  the  un-Greek 
legend  of  his  death,  were  preserved  by  his  Minoan  counter- 
part. One  can  also  see  something  of  Apollo  in  Vel- 
chanos, which  harmonizes  with  the  tradition  that  the  oracle 
and  worship  of  Apollo  at  Delphi  came  from  Crete. 

We  know  something  of  the  ritual  of  this  early  cult. 
Scenes  representing  worshipers  or  priestesses  in  various 
attitudes  of  adoration,  pouring  libations,  sacrificing  and 
playing  upon  musical  instruments,  are  common.  Though 
images  of  the  mother-goddess  were  known  apparently 
from  the  earliest  times — as  idols  of  steatite  just  sug- 
gesting the  human  form  have  been  found  in  the  neolithic 
deposits  at  Cnossus — the  chief  cult  objects  were  taken 
from  the  natural  world,  especially  stones,  trees  and  pil- 
lars, the  fetish  forms  of  the  original  divine  mountain— 
the  cone-shaped  Mount  luktas,  south  of  Cnossus,  which 
seems  to  have  been  sacred  from  the  beginning,  and  which 
in  course  of  time  gave  birth  both  in  Crete  and  on  the 
mainland  of  Greece  to  altars  and  statues.  Sacred  pillars 
with  nothing  to  uphold  are  common  objects  of  worship 
to  the  end  of  Minoan  times. 

Intimately  associated  with  the  yEgean  deities  was  the 
national  emblem  known  as  the  "  Double  Axe,"  which 
appears  everywhere  as  a  hieroglyph  on  altars  and  pillars, 
while  great  quantities  of  bronze  axes,  full-sized  and  mini- 
ature, were  found  in  the  cave  of  Dicte.  the  legendary 

262 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

birthplace  of  the  Cretan  Zeus.  Thus  it  is  carved  thirty 
times  on  two  small  pillars  of  one  room  of  the  palace  at 
Phaestos,  and  in  a  small  chapel  at  Cnossus  it  was  found  be- 
tween the  bull  "  horns  of  consecration."  A  complete  scene 
of  worship,  in  which  a  sacrifice  is  taking  place  before  the 
"  Double  Axe,"  is  seen  on  a  late  painted  sarcophagus  from 
Hagia  Triada,  and  it  appears  as  the  central  object  of  a  cult 
scene  on  a  painted  clay  coffin  from  Palaecastro.  This  em- 
blem has  generally  been  looked  upon  as  the  fetish  form  of 
the  associated  goddess  and  god,  who  were  supposed  to 
form  what  Hogarth  calls  a  "  dual  monotheism."  Though 
evidence  of  its  cult  use  is  overwhelming,  it  also  appears 
where  no  religious  significance  can  be  proven.  Perhaps 
at  first  the  axe  was  merely  a  tool  or  weapon  typifying 
human  strength;  later,  by  an  easy  transition,  it  came  to 
typify  divine  power.  Plutarch  says  the  "  Double  Axe  " 
was  a  royal  emblem  of  Lydia  down  to  the  seventh  century 
B.C.  Apart  from  its  religious  connection  in  Minoan  art, 
therefore,  it  may  also  be  the  blazon  of  royalty.  Its  native 
name,  labrys,  was  the  special  emblem  of  the  Carian  Zeus 
at  Labrandea,  a  fact  which  may  point  to  Its  having  been 
in  Crete  the  emblem  of  the  god  and  not  of  the  goddess. 
It  may  be  the  original  of  the  Latin  labarum,  the  Roman 
military  standard  upon  which  Constantine  in  312  A.D. 
placed  the  cross  and  which  he  carried  before  his  armies. 
Already  on  philological  grounds  it  had  been  suggested 
that  the  Greek  word  Labyrinthos  was  derived  from  labrys. 
The  discovery  that  the  great  foundation  at  Cnossus  was 
both  a  palace  and  a  sanctuary  of  the  "  Double  Axe"  seems 
to  confirm  this  view,  and  we  may  now  recognize  in  this 
huge  building,  which  covers  four  acres  of  ground  and 
contains  vast  mazes  of  rooms,  baths,  winding  corridors 
and  subterranean  passages,  all  grouped  around  open 
courts,  the  famous  Labyrinth  of  Greek  tradition. 

Among  other  sacred  objects  discovered  was  a  marble 
cross  of  equal  limbs  found  in  a  repository  of  the  Great 

263 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

Palace  at  Cnossus,  which  Dr.  Evans  believes  may  have 
been  the  central  object  of  worship  in  the  Cretan  cult.  This 
discovery  shows  that  a  cross  of  orthodox  Greek  form  was 
an  object  of  worship  centuries  before  Christianity.  It 
may  also  help  to  explain  why  the  Greek  Church  has  always 
preferred  this  to  the  Latin  form  of  the  cross.  Similarly 
the  Svastika,  the  common  emblem  sculptured  on  Buddhist 
monuments  of  India  and  China  and  known  in  prehistoric 
Europe,  was  discovered  in  great  numbers  by  Schliemann 
at  Troy  and  elsewhere  in  Mycenaean  strata.  Like  the  cross, 
it  never  appears  in  classical  Greece,  but  reappears  in  the 
Christian  period  in  the  catacombs  of  Rome  and  on  funeral 
stelae  of  Asia  Minor. 

The  bull  was  the  emblem  of  Velchanos  and  was  the 
chief  victim  of  sacrifice.  Like  the  elephant  of  Siam,  he 
was  both  royal  and  sacred ;  his  actual  horns  or  clay  copies 
of  them  adorned  altars  and  shrines,  and  almost  every 
religious  scene  on  gems  and  frescoes  that  has  been  dis- 
covered. These  were  doubtless  fetish  objects,  conven- 
tional reductions  of  the  bull's  head,  which,  in  turn,  was  a 
convention  for  the  whole  animal.  Bull's  blood  was 
poured  in  libation  from  vessels  fashioned  in  the  shape 
of  his  head,  and  goldsmiths  fashioned  great  heads  of 
the  animal,  like  the  well-known  silver  one  with  a  golden 
rosette  on  its  forehead,  found  at  Mycenae.  The  sport  of 
leaping  over  bulls,  pictured  in  the  frescoes  from  both 
Crete  and  South  Greece,  was  doubtless  connected  with 
the  worship  of  the  god.  Besides  the  bull  there  were  many 
other  sacred  animals  depicted  in  Minoan  art — serpents, 
doves,  lions,  goats.  It  also  pictured  monsters,  such  as 
the  Minotaur,  griffins,  sphinxes,  lion-headed  demons  and 
human  figures  with  lions'  and  asses'  heads.  Minoan  re- 
ligion appears  to  have  been  weird,  perhaps  weirder  than 
the  mysteries  of  Egyptian  worship.  On  intaglios  from 
Zakro  we  see  an  extraordinary  medley  of  queer  animals — 

264 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

butterfly-winged  sphinxes,  stag-headed  women,  antlered 
men  and  other  such  combinations. 

A  larger  view  of  the  significance  of  this  Minoan- 
Mycenaean  religion  shows  that  in  many  of  its  funda- 
mentals it  had  its  counterpart  among  many  of  the  early 
peoples  who  bordered  the  Mediterranean.  A  great 
Nature-goddess  with  a  subordinate  youthful  god  com- 
panion— who  was  sometimes  conceived  as  both  husband 
and  son — appears  in  Carthaginian  Africa  as  Tanit  and 
her  son,  in  Egypt  as  Isis  and  Horus,  in  Phoenicia  as  Ash- 
tart  and  Tammuz  or  Adonis,  in  Asia  Minor  as  Cybele 
and  Attis,  and  in  Greece  in  the  old  legend  of  Rhea  and 
Zeus.  Though  a  virgin,  she  is  generally  looked  upon 
as  the  mother,  by  immaculate  conception,  of  her  com- 
panion, and  later  by  him  of  all  gods  and  all  life.  She 
is  the  spirit  of  nature;  her  son  dies  and  she  renews  her- 
self by  continued  offspring.  Similarly  the  ^Egean  ritual 
and  cult  are  paralleled  among  all  early  nations.  The 
indwelling  of  a  deity  in  stones  and  trees  and  pillars  is 
characteristic  of  an  early  stage  of  development  every- 
where. The  Canaanite  Ashtart,  the  female  counterpart 
of  Baal,  was  often  adored  under  the  symbol  of  a  tree — 
the  asherah  or  "  grove "  denounced  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. The  Greeks  of  Delphi,  still  in  the  second  century 
A.D.,  poured  oil  each  day  on  an  unwrought  stone  and 
placed  unspun  wool  upon  it  in  times  of  festival.  When 
Jacob,  the  ancestor  of  the  Israelites,  fell  asleep  and 
dreamed  of  a  ladder  between  earth  and  heaven,  with  its 
angels  ascending  and  descending,  he  set  up  his  pillow 
stone  "  for  a  pillar  and  poured  oil  upon  the  top  of  it" 
and  called  the  place  Beth-El,  literally  the  House  of  God. 
A  Greek  legend  makes  Cronus  swallow  a  sacred  stone 
or  b&tylos  in  the  belief  that  it  was  his  son  Zeus.  It  seems 
clear  that  this  Greek  word  is  derived  from  the  Semitic 
beth-el,  through  a  Phoenician  form  bait-ul.  The  use 
of  weapons,  like  the  "  Double  Axe,"  existed  among  the 

265 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

Hittites.  The  bull's  "  horns  of  consecration  "  appear  in 
early  Hebrew  ritual  as  the  "  horns  of  the  altar."  Belief 
in  sacred  animals  is  common  to  all  primitive  peoples  and 
survived  down  into  historic  Greece.  The  serpent,  as  the 
embodiment  of  the  powers  of  the  underworld,  was  com- 
mon to  Egypt  and  Greece.  Perhaps  the  serpents  of  the 
snake-goddesses  may  have  had  something  to  do  with 
household  worship,  like  the  household  snakes  of  later 
Rome.  The  dove  is  both  Semitic  and  Christian;  lion- 
esses were  Cybele's  guardians ;  the  bull  was  the  dwelling 
of  divinity  in  Egyptian  Memphis  and  was  common  in 
early  Greek  cult;  the  goat  was  a  sacred  animal  until  late 
days  in  Asia  Minor.  Monsters,  like  those  depicted  on 
Minoan  cult-scenes,  were  common  in  Egypt,  and  even  in 
historic  days  in  Greece  a  horse-headed  Demeter  was  wor- 
shiped in  Arcadia  and  a  ram-headed  Apollo  in  Laconia. 
When  we  turn  to  an  account  of  the  development  of 
religion  on  the  mainland  of  Greece,  the  question  arises 
as  to  what  influence  the  ^Egean  religion  centring  in 
Crete  exerted  on  it.  The  influence  of  the  later  periods  of 
Crete  on  Greece,  reflected  in  the  Greek  belief  that  Crete 
was  the  cradle  of  its  law,  art  and  religion,  must  have 
been  immense.  But  it  would  be  unreasonable  to  follow 
Gruppe  in  his  belief  that  Crete  was  the  main  source  of 
early  Greek  religion,  unless  we  could  prove  at  the  same 
time  that  it  was  also  the  source  of  all  other  phases  of 
Greek  civilization.  We  must  rather,  therefore,  look  upon 
the  early  religion  of  the  Mediterranean  mainland  as  a 
\  more  or  less  independent  development  of  the  same  yEgean 
product,  which  grew  up  under  different  conditions  in 
Crete.  A  good  deal  of  this  difference  can  be  explained 
by  the  different  social  structure  of  Greece,  with  its  City- 
State,  and  of  Crete,  with  its  Sea-Empire.  Crete,  though 
herself  influenced  for  centuries  by  Egypt  and  the  East, 
could  have  influenced  the  cult  of  the  mainland  but  little 
before  the  latest  period  of  her  life,  when  the  hegemony 

266 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

was  transferred  from  Cnossus  to  Mycenae.  We  know  that 
the  Hellenic  invaders  of  Greece  found  a  dominant  god- 
dess cult  similar  to  that  of  Crete  in  many  places  on  the 
mainland — its  portion  of  the  common  ^Egean  tradition. 
The  American  excavations  at  the  Heraeum  near  Argos 
have  shown  that  a  powerful  goddess  was  worshiped  there 
long  before  the  Hellenes  came.  At  Olympia  Hera  was 
worshiped  for  centuries  before  Zeus.  At  Dodona  in 
Epirus  Zeus  and  Dione  appear  to  have  succeeded  an  older 
pair  of  powers  whose  presence  was  recognized  in  the 
springs  and  oak  forests  and  who  were  probably  resorted 
to  for  omens.  Wherever,  then,  we  find  in  Greece  a  god- 
dess cult,  especially  that  of  a  virgin  goddess,  we  are 
generally  safe  in  recognizing  the  earlier  Mediterranean 
tradition  in  antagonism  to  the  later  Aryan,  which  in- 
variably gave  preeminence  to  the  male  god.  Thus  the 
cults  of  Artemis  in  Attica  and  Arcadia,  of  Athena  in 
Attica,  of  Hera  in  Samos,  Argos  and  Olympia,  were  sur- 
vivals of  an  earlier  period.  However,  this  is  not  a  fixed 
phenomenon  in  early  Greek  religion,  for  we  cannot  always 
assume  a  non-Hellenic  divinity  where  we  find  a  dominant 
goddess  cult.  Nothing,  for  example,  is  more  Aryan  than 
the  cult  of  Demeter  at  Eleusis,  and  we  know  that  many 
Aryan  religions  gave  prominence  to  an  earth-goddess. 

THE  PREHISTORIC  RELIGION  OF  THE  MAINLAND  OF  GREECE 

Let  us  rapidly  survey  the  early  religious  development 
of  the  mainland  and  distinguish  the  component  factors 
which  went  to  make  what  we  historically  call  Greek  re- 
ligion. Here  the  evidence  is  not  wholly  archaeological, 
as  in  the  case  of  Crete,  for  we  also  have  the  help  of 
philology  and  literature  to  guide  us.  Ethnology  has 
proven  nothing  more  conclusively  than  the  fact  that  the 
race  we  call  Greek  was,  like  others  great  in  history,  the 
product  of  a  blend  of  populations — conquering  Aryan 
tribes  from  central  Europe,  the  Hellenes  or  Eurasians 

267 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

or  Nordics  of  ethnology,  settling  among  the  indigenous 
stocks,  the  Eurafricans  or  Mediterraneans  of  whom  we 
have  been  speaking.  We  must  conclude,  then,  that  the  re- 
ligion of  historic  Greece  was  likewise  a  product  of  a  blend 
of  early  Indo-European  or  Aryan  beliefs  with  the  older 
cult  ideas  and  practices  of  these  peoples.  These  two 
sources  continued  interwoven  all  through  the  history  of 
Greek  religion  and  are  discernible  in  the  later  strata  of 
both  theology  and  ritual.  To  disentangle  them  is  the  first 
problem  for  the  historian  of  Greek  religion.  The  problem 
is  to  find  out  what  the  tall,  fair-haired,  round-headed 
northerners  found  indigenous  in  the  lands  they  conquered, 
before  we  can  say  what  part  of  the  historic  religion  was 
Aryan.  It  is  a  very  difficult  problem  and  we  can  do  little 
more  than  distinguish  lower  from  higher  forms  in  the 
developed  religion  and,  generally  speaking,  look  upon  the 
former  as  survivals  of  an  earlier  animistic  past,  rather 
than  explain  them  as  having  grown  up  spontaneously  in 
later  days,  when  civic  and  social  life  was  in  an  advanced 
stage.  Most  of  these  cruder  beliefs  and  practices  were, 
of  course,  gradually  abandoned  in  the  presence  of  the 
later,  higher  forms,  but  others  were  tolerated  to  the  end 
of  paganism.  A  good  deal  of  such  persistent  conserva- 
tism in  the  Greek  record  must  be  laid  to  the  door  of 
nothing  else  than  inertia.  It  was  often  easier  to  keep 
the  old  forms  side  by  side  with  developed  ones  than  to  get 
rid  of  them. 

In  many  ways  the  early  animistic  stage  of  Greek  re- 
ligion is  characteristically  Greek,  while  in  others  it  is 
typical  of  a  similar  stage  of  thought  everywhere.  Thus 
we  may  call  it  the  normal  beginning  of  all  religions,  the 
raw  material — to  use  the  phrase  of  Gilbert  Murray — out 
of  which  they  are  made.  The  German  scholar  Preuss  has 
applied  to  it  the  expressive  term  "  Urdummheit  "  or  "  Pri- 
mal Stupidity."  In  Greece  this  prehistoric  stage  is  both 
repulsive  and  attractive.  We  can  see  how  crude  notions 

268 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

slowly  were  either  gotten  rid  of  or  at  last  transformed 
into  things  of  beauty. 

In  treating  this  early  stage,  it  has  been  the  habit  until 
recently  to  look  upon  the  poems  of  Homer  as  primitive 
and  thus  to  start  with  the  idea  of  gods.  Whenever  we 
speak  of  Greek  mythology,  we  inevitably  think  of  Homer's 
man-gods — of  Zeus  with  his  thunderbolt,  father  of  gods 
and  men,  of  Hera,  his  turbulent  queen,  of  Poseidon  with 
his  trident,  the  lord  of  the  sea,  of  Athena  and  her  panoply 
of  arms.  Greek  literature,  vase  paintings  and  sculpture* 
are  all  dominated  by  this  idea  of  anthropomorphism,  the 
strongest  trend  in  Greek  religion ;  we,  sharing  the  similar 
mistake  of  the  classical  Greeks,  think  of  these  gods  as 
magnified  humans.  Homer's  gods  are  not  vague  numina, 
as  the  old  Roman  divinities  were  in  the  main,  dimly  out- 
lined, animate  though  scarcely  personal;  they  are  con- 
crete individuals  correlated  into  a  hierarchy  organized 
under  a  supreme  god.  In  other  words,  the  poets  of  the 
Iliad  and  Odyssey  do  not  give  us  a  picture  of  primitive 
religion  at  all,  but  of  an  advanced  polytheism.  If  we  con- 
sider how  slow  of  growth  religious  ideas  are,  we  see  they 
must  have  inherited  an  age-long  tradition  of  polytheism 
and  we  must,  therefore,  assume  a  long  evolution  which 
ended  in  humanly  conceived  deities.  Just  how  these  gods 
were  evolved  is  a  question  which  has  been  much  dis- 
cussed. Older  critics  contended,  for  instance,  that  the 
Aryan  Sky-god,  common  to  the  Vedic  Hindoos,  the 
Greeks  and  the  Romans,  was  brought  into  the  Balkan 
peninsula  and  split  up  into  the  countless  forms  under 
which  Zeus  was  worshiped  in  every  hamlet.  More  scien- 
tific scholars,  like  Eduard  Meyer,3  believe  the  process  was 
just  the  opposite,  one  of  "  condensation  "  rather  than 
expansion.  Thus  similar  gods  worshiped  by  different 
groups  would  gradually  merge  into  one ;  each  cult  would 
emphasize  its  own  Zeus  in  accordance  with  its  influence, 

3Geschickte  des  Ahertums  II,  96. 

269 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  character  of  Zeus  would  be 
modified  by  the  general  Greek  conception.  The  long 
accepted  belief  that  the  unity  of  Zeus  was  original  and 
the  variety  of  local  Zeuses  was  accidental  is  opposed  to 
the  historical  fact  that  the  unity  of  the  Greek  people  was 
the  result  of  development.  Probably  Zeus  and  Poseidon 
and  all  the  other  gods  of  the  later  Epic  were  merely 
"  composite  photographs"  of  many  earlier  Zeuses  and 
Poseidons.  The  Epic  poets  finally  unified  and  standard- 
ized the  earlier  concepts  and,  putting  an  end  to  the  primi- 
tive vagueness,  created  a  universal  Hellenic  religion. 
It  is  only  in  this  sense  that  we  understand  the  statement 
of  Herodotus  that  Homer  and  Hesiod  framed  the  theog- 
ony  of  the  Greeks,  giving  to  the  gods  their  names  and 
powers  and  forms.  Even  if  we  assume  that  the  appear- 
ance of  personal  gods  is  a  very  early  fact  in  religious  de- 
velopment, still  the  idea  of  gods  dwelling  far  away  in 
the  sky  like  Homer's  Olympians  is  by  no  means  an  easy 
one  for  primitive  peoples  to  grasp,  while  the  idea  of 
their  omnipotence  and  omnipresence  simply  transcends  the 
barriers  of  all  local  religions.  One  of  the  world's  greatest 
religions  has  dispensed  with  the  idea  of  God  altogether 
and  yet  has  risen  to  great  heights  of  moral  and  intel- 
lectual power.  Such  a  development  is,  of  course,  ex- 
ceptional, for  even  the  most  primitive  peoples  regularly 
evolve  gods  with  "  body,  parts  and  passions  " ;  in  the 
higher  stage  of  religions,  even  if  the  gods  do  not  have  the 
bodies  of  men,  they  are  sure  to  have  their  mental  attri- 
butes. 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  GREEK  GODS 

If  Homer  and  Hesiod,  then,  in  no  sense  created  the 
theogony  of  the  Greeks,  how  did  the  gods  originate? 
Herodotus  tells  us  that  a  people,  whom  he  calls  Pelasgians, 
once  inhabited  Greece  long  before  Homer  and  that  at 
their  sacrifices,  though  they  called  on  theoi  "  gods,"  these 

270 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

gods  had  neither  names  nor  titles.  This  means  that  there 
was  a  time  in  Greece,  as  everywhere  else  in  the  ^Egean 
area,  when  men  of  Mediterranean  stock,  the  Pelasgians 
of  Herodotus,  the  Eurafricans  of  modern  ethnology, 
worshiped  unindividualized  powers.  These  "gods"  were 
things  and  not  persons,  a  statement  borne  out  by  Plato, 
who  says  that  the  earliest  Greeks,  like  other  barbarians, 
worshiped  the  sun,  moon,  stars,  heaven  and  earth.  These 
theoi  were  the  germs  of  the  later  gods  whom  we  meet  in 
Homer.  The  Mediterraneans  of  the  mainland  were  sim- 
ply more  backward  than  their  brothers  of  Crete  and  ap- 
pear to  have  evolved  anthropomorphic  personal  gods  at 
a  much  later  time.  That  Herodotus  was  right  in  his 
statement  about  the  origin  of  the  Greek  gods  is  borne 
out  both  by  comparative  religion  and  archaeology. 

The  comparative  study  of  religions  shows  us  that 
everywhere  men  do  not  at  first  attribute  personality  to  the 
things  they  worship,  but  that  this  is  an  idea  saturated 
with  ages  of  reflection.  Long  before  gods  are  clothed 
with  animal  or  human  forms  is  the  stage  of  religious 
development  known  as  animism,  when  gods  are  intangible 
things  dwelling  everywhere  in  nature — in  stones,  rocks, 
trees,  rivers.  Thus  the  early  inhabitants  of  Greece, 
living  in  a  region  of  great  beauty  and  variety,  were  led 
to  sympathize  strongly  with  the  material  world  about 
them  and  saw  agencies  full  of  energy  in  every  object. 
In  this  way  they  gave  a  soul  and  will  to  the  all-nourishing 
earth,  the  benevolent  sun,  the  restless  sea,  the  whispering 
wind  and  irresistible  storm.  Everything  that  moved  or 
grew  seemed  to  them  to  be  full  of  life.  In  course  of  time, 
instead  of  continuing  to  deify  these  things,  they  tried  to 
set  a  personal  god  above  them,  who  directs  them.  At  first 
they  conceived  these  spirits  as  animals,  like  Apollo's 
Pegasus,  who  caused  the  fountain  of  Hippocrene  to  gush 
forth  on  the  top  of  Helicon  by  the  blow  of  his  hoof; 
later  they  imagined  them  as  men,  or  men  and  animals 

271 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

combined,  like  the  River-gods,  which  were  conceived  as 
bulls  with  human  heads,  to  typify  the  tremendous  power 
of  the  onsweeping  current  and  at  the  same  time  the  in- 
genuity of  mind  which  directs  it.  Thus  the  early  Greeks 
peopled  all  nature  with  spirits — nymphs,  dryads,  satyrs, 
fauns,  spirits  of  wood  and  mountain  and  river.  Later  on, 
in  historical  times,  this  process  was  helped  by  art  and  in 
the  final  stages  included  abstract  ideas,  as  we  hear  of 
statues  erected  to  such  personifications  as  "  Peace," 
"  Concord "  and  "  Mercy."  As  Reinach  puts  it,  the 
Greeks,  beginning  with  endowing  all  bodies  with  thought, 
ended  by  endowing  all  thoughts  with  body.  Such  animis- 
tic notions  survived  into  the  latest  days.  Certain  of  the 
Arcadians,  for  example,  who  were  always  more  backward 
than  the  rest  of  the  Greeks,  sacrificed  at  Trapezus  still 
in  the  second  century  of  our  era  to  "  lightning,  thunder 
and  hurricanes,"  as  if  to  live  beings.  The  cult  of  Hestia 
is  perhaps  the  best  example.  Originally  Hestia  meant 
simply  "  Holy  Hearth  "  and  to  the  end  of  polytheism 
never  became  a  separate  personality.  These  animistic 
notions  in  historical  days  became  transformed  by  the 
imagination  of  poets  into  the  beautiful  stories  which  have 
colored  all  modern  literatures. 

Fetishism  grew  out  of  animism — the  superstitious 
use  of  objects  invested  with  mysterious  potency,  either 
for  protective  magic  or  higher  communion  with  a  deity. 
From  the  earlier  yEgean  days  down  to  our  time  this  has 
been  an  important  factor  in  the  religion  of  the  Graeco- 
Roman  world.  I  have  already  spoken  of  the  "  bsetylic  " 
cult  of  sacred  stones  and  pillars  in  the  Minoan-Mycenaean 
period.  In  Greece  such  rude  pillars  survived  to  the  latest 
days  side  by  side  with  masterpieces  of  sculpture.  Pau- 
sanias,  a  Greek  who  travelled  over  the  mainland  in  the 
age  of  the  Antonines,  and  who  has  left  us  an  invaluable 
record  of  religious  customs,  mentions  several.  Thus  at 
Phane,  a  town  of  Achaea,  he  records  an  image  of  Hermes, 

272 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

which  was  nothing  but  a  square  block  surmounted  by  a 
bearded  head.  He  says  that  thirty  square  stones  revered 
as  gods  stood  near  it,  and  adds  that  in  ancient  days  all 
the  Greeks  worshiped  such  unwrought  stones.  He  also 
says  that  the  images  in  an  old  shrine  of  the  Graces  were 
meteoric  stones,  as  also  one  of  Eros  at  Thespiae.  Now 
the  square  herm  at  Pharae  was  merely  a  step  in  advance 
over  these  unwrought  stones.  Hermes,  who  appears  in 
Homer  as  a  beautiful  messenger  with  golden  rod  and 
winged  sandals,  was,  therefore,  originally  only  a  boundary 
stone.  Thus  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  his  Mediterranean 
origin  in  herm  form,  just  as  there  is  none  concerning 
that  of  the  Graces  and  many  other  divinities.  In  the 
earliest  days,  then,  in  Pelasgian  Arcadia  and  elsewhere, 
tree  trunks,  unwrought  stones  and  limbless  pillars  were 
objects  of  worship  just  as  they  were  in  Crete.  Though 
the  trees  are  gone,  some  of  the  pillars  have  survived  and 
we  can  see  them  both  at  Cnossus  and  Mycenae.  The 
best  example  of  such  a  pillar  on  the  mainland  is  the 
famous  "  Lion  Gate  "  of  Mycenae.  There  on  the  pedi- 
ment over  the  gate  is  a  Doric  column,  resting  on  an  altar- 
like  base,  with  a  lion  on  either  side.  This  is  not  a  "  Lion 
Gate"  at  all,  but  a  pillar  shrine  guarded  by  lions;  the 
pillar  is  a  god  and  has  a  peculiar  shape,  tapering  down- 
wards like  the  human  form.  The  same  pillar  has  come  to 
life  in  a  seal  impression  found  at  Cnossus;  for  here  it 
has  become  a  goddess  standing  on  a  cairn  of  stones,  who 
is  guarded  by  lionesses.  The  undifferentiated  Pelasgian 
god  has  already  developed  in  Crete  personality  and  sex. 
Probably  all  such  early  anthropomorphized  images — long 
existent  in  Crete  but  just  emerging  in  the  Greece  of 
Homer's  time — were  evolved  like  this  Cnossian  "  Lion 
Goddess,"  from  just  such  upright  sacred  columns  as 
that  of  Mycense.  And  doubtless  the  tree  preceded  the 
pillar. 

18  273 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

PRIMITIVE  PELASGIAN  BELIEFS  AND  PRACTICES 

We  can  recover  something  of  the  Pelasgian,  i.e., 
^Egean  ritual  as  it  was  practiced  in  Greece.  The  Homeric 
ritual  of  sacrifice  was  simple  and  uniform,  consisting  of 
prayer,  the  sprinkling  of  grain  and  a  burnt  offering;  a 
part  of  the  flesh  of  the  victim  was  tasted  by  the  wor- 
shipers and  then  given  to  the  gods,  sublimated  by  fire  in 
order  to  reach  them,  and  the  rest  was  eaten  at  a  banquet 
with  wine.  This  ritual  is  not  essentially  Greek  nor  even 
Aryan.  We  find  that  Jahweh  enjoys  burnt  sacrifices  and 
that  his  worshipers  have  a  sacrificial  feast.  There  was  also 
a  different  ritual,  one  in  honor  of  the  powers  of  the 
underworld,  i.e.,  to  dead  men  or  heroes.  Pausanias  tells 
us  of  it  and  shows  us  that  the  dead  required  all  the 
sacrificial  animal  and  the  worshipers  were  not  allowed 
even  to  taste  it.  The  victim  was  slain  over  a  trench  with 
his  head  downward,  just  as  Odysseus  sacrifices  in  the 
Odyssey  before  he  descends  into  Hell.  In  the  Olympian 
sacrifice,  on  the  contrary,  the  head  was  always  turned 
upward.  Where  rites  were  performed  to  both  heroes  and 
Olympians,  the  former,  as  we  learn  from  Pausanias's 
account  of  the  change  in  ritual  at  the  sacrifice  to  Heracles 
at  Sicyon  from  hero  to  god,  were  older  and  went  back 
to  the  Mediterranean  stratum,  the  Olympian  replacing 
the  hero  rites  later.  Thus  the  two  rituals  often,  as  at 
Sicyon,  came  into  conflict,  the  Olympian  ousting  the 
earlier. 

The  hero  cult  at  the  tomb  presupposed  that  the  dead 
man's  spirit  was  hovering  nearby  ready  to  be  appeased. 
Wherever  the  dead  are  buried,  such  a  belief  in  the  world 
of  ghosts  is  sure  to  be  found.  The  dead  man  becomes  a 
sort  of  god  to  whom  his  descendants  sacrifice.  Now  the 
invading  Hellenes  did  not  bury  their  dead,  but  burnt 
them:  consequently  the  spirit  did  not  hover  about  the 
tomb,  but  fled  to  some  faraway  place,  as  the  soul  of 
Patroclus  does  in  the  Iliad,  where  it  could  exert  no  influ- 

274 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

ence  on  the  living.  The  custom  of  cremation  came  with 
the  invaders  from  Central  Europe,  where  their  ancestors 
were  accustomed  to  great  forests  for  use  in  building 
funeral  pyres.  Thus  Tacitus  tells  us  that  the  ancient 
Germans  burned  their  chiefs.  In  this  way  the  survivors 
were  freed  from  the  greatest  fear  which  haunts  primitive 
men — the  fear  of  the  ghost- world.  Mycenaean  tombs,  on 
the  other  hand,  show  that  the  Mediterraneans  buried  their 
dead.  Many  objects  found  in  them — arms,  ornaments 
and  the  usual  funeral  furniture — supplied  the  dead  with 
things  which  belonged  to  them  on  earth  and  prove  that 
the  Mycenaean  Greeks  believed  in  an  after-life.  But 
even  at  Mycenae  there  seems  to  be  no  evidence  of  a  large 
ghost  element  such  as  we  find  in  Egypt  and  Babylon  and 
even  in  Christianity.  Perhaps  the  prehistoric  Greek  was 
worse  off  in  this  respect  than  his  successor,  the  classical 
Greek,  but  even  so  he  seems  to  have  worried  little  about 
his  future.  Most  of  the  early  terror  inspired  by  the 
powers  of  the  lower  world  fortunately  later  was  changed 
into  the  action  of  the  benign  functions  of  vegetation  gods 
or  else  faded  away,  surviving  only  here  and  there  in 
folk-lore. 

The  ghost  of  a  murdered  man,  according  to  the  Greek 
view  of  homicide,  still  held  in  ^Eschylus's  day,  became  an 
embodied  curse,  personified  as  a  Fury,  and  continued  to 
haunt  the  murderer  to  the  end  of  his  life.  The  blood 
of  the  slain  man  caused  a  pollution  which,  according  to 
the  old  lex  talionis,  could  only  be  expelled  by  the  blood  of 
his  murderer.  But  such  an  idea  of  an  unending  feud 
is  not  Homeric.  The  Epic  Achaeans,  like  the  old  Germans, 
believed  that  atonement  could  be  made  by  the  payment  of 
blood  rnoney^ — wergeld.  Thus,  in  this  respect,  also,  the 
Homeric  and  the  Pelasgian  ideas  were  opposed.  There 
are  also  evidences  in  this  older  ritual  of  a  more  sombre 
side — human  sacrifice  and  blood  magic.  Though  the  facts 
about  human  sacrifice  are  not  yet  fully  explained,  we 

275 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

know  it  existed  in  Mediterranean  times  in  Greece,  if  not 
in  Crete,  and  it  is  equally  certain  that  survivals  of  it  re- 
mained into  historical  days.  In  Mycenaean  graves  human 
bones  have  been  found  at  the  doorways.  Whether  they 
symbolize  an  act  of  worship  or  merely  imply  rites  of 
tendance,  a  feeling  that  the  dead  needed  companions  on 
their  journey  below,  is  of  little  consequence;  for  in  any 
case  they  must  be  the  remains  of  slain  captives  or  slaves. 
By  Homer's  time  a  change  had  begun,  for  the  poet  blames 
Achilles  for  his  cruelty  in  slaying  Trojan  captives  at 
the  grave  of  Patroclus.  Encouraged  once  by  the  Delphic 
oracle,  by  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries  B.C.  the  custom 
had  become  rare  and  repellent,  as  we  see  from  the  Platonic 
dialogue  Minos,  where  Greeks  and  barbarians  are  con- 
trasted in  this  respect.  Still  it  was  kept  up  in  the  ghastly 
rites  of  Zeus  Lycaeus  in  Arcadia  and  in  the  barbarous 
sacrament  of  Zeus  Laphystius  in  Bceotia  and  Thessaly. 
Euripides,  in  his  drama  Iphigenla  among  the  Taurians, 
attests  that  a  similar  sacrifice  existed  in  Brauron  in  Attica 
before  his  day.  The  Locrian  sacrifice  of  maidens  to 
appease  Athena  Ilias  had  fallen  into  disuse  by  the  fourth 
century  B.C.  The  inhuman  custom  was  continued  in  cer- 
tain parts  of  the  Roman  Empire  down  to  Hadrian's  day. 
Generally  such  rites  were  piacular,  the  sacrifice  to  an 
offended  god  being  a  scapegoat  for  the  life  o-f  the  whole 
people  as  a  vicarious  offering;  again  it  was  agricultural 
in  motive,  blood  being  shed  as  a  form  of  magic  to  pro- 
mote fertility. 

Though  Homer  says  nothing  about  magical  rites,  we 
know  how  primitive  they  are.  The  old  cult  of  sacred 
stones  taught  that  such  objects  had  magical  powers  to  cure 
diseases  and  purge  homicides  of  guilt.  Certain  statues  of 
Olympic  victors  of  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries  B.C., 
like  those  of  the  Thasian  Theagenes  and  the  Thessalian 
Polydamus,  were  supposed  to  heal  fevers.  Many  a  Greek 
myth  is  the  child  of  magic.  Thus  Danae  is  not  to  be 

276 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

explained  as  an  allegory  meaning  that  "  gold  opens  all 
doors,"  but  merely  as  a  golden  rain  with  which  Zeus  visits 
Earth.  The  Thesmophoria — one  of  the  oldest  festivals 
at  Athens — was  still  in  historical  days  largely  concerned 
with  magical  rites  aimed  at  increasing  fertility,  such  as 
strewing  the  fields  with  the  remains  of  pigs  consecrated 
to  the  goddesses  of  earth.  The  Thargelia,  another  Athen- 
ian festival,  was  concerned  with  the  scapegoat,  with  a 
ritualistic  scourging  and  transference  of  sin.  All  such 
phenomena  are  magical.  Certain  Athenian  officials  in 
historical  times  were  called  "  Windlullers,"  because  they 
had  magical  powers  to  lull  the  winds  to  sleep.  In  the  fifth 
century  B.C.  the  efficacy  of  magic  was  recognized  by  law. 
Thus  a  Tean  inscription  gives  a  law  which  threatens 
those  who  used  magic  against  individuals  or  state.  This 
"  black  "  magic  was  still  practised  in  Pausanias's  day  at 
Haliartus,  in  Boeotia,  and  it  was  probably  a  lineal  de- 
scendant of  Mediterranean  magic.  Plato,  in  his  last  work, 
the  Laws,  is  not  certain  whether  he  believes  in  the  efficacy 
of  magic  or  not.  Despite  all  this  and  similar  evi- 
dence it  may  be  said  that  magic  was  never  so  prevalent 
in  Greece  as  in  Mesopotamia  and  Egypt,  and  that  what 
did  exist  was  generally  beneficent  in  character  and  its 
ceremo-nies  were  refined. 

We  see,  then,  that  there  are  not  only  two  strata  of 
theology  in  the  historic  religion  of  Greece,  but  two  of 
ritual :  an  upper  stratum,  belonging  to  the  Olympian  sys- 
tem, which  had  little  notion  of  the  ghost- world,  placation 
oi  the  angry  dead  nor  magical  rites  of  purification — in 
short,  no  ceremonies  of  "  aversion  "  or  riddance,  and  a 
lower  stratum  of  the  indigenous  Southerners  which  in- 
cluded elements  common  to  the  ^Egean  and  early  Eastern 
religions,  stone,  pillar  and  tree  worship,  belief  in  the 
world  of  spirits  and  the  efficacy  of  magic.  Many  other 
crude,  though  harmless,  survivals  of  this  later  stratum 
might  be  mentioned,  such  as  the  sacrifice  known  as  the 

277 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

Buphonia,  kept  up  to  a  late  period  at  the  altar  of  Zeus 
•Polieus  on  the  Acropolis,  which  was  a  medley  of  magical 
rites;  or  the  court  held  at  the  Prytaneum  in  Athens,  at 
which  animals  and  lifeless  things  were  tried,  condemned 
and  punished,  a  court  having  its  origin  in  the  dim  ani- 
mistic past  and  still  flourishing  in  the  time  of  Demosthenes 
and  surviving  for  centuries  later. 

ORIENTAL  INFLUENCES   ON   EARLY   GREEK   RELIGION 

We  have  seen,  then,  that  within  its  own  limits  the 
early  Mediterranean  religion  had  begun  even  on  the 
mainland  of  Greece  to  give  form  and  personality  to  its 
undifferentiated  gods.  But  we  are  still  a  long  way  from 
Homer's  gods.  It  was  not  the  Epic  poets  who  completed 
the  work  of  differentiation.  The  process  was  helped  on 
by  another  factor — the  second  in  the  makeup  of  Greek 
religion — influences  from  the  Oriental  nations.  The 
priestesses  of  Zeus  at  Dodona,  the  oldest  Greek  oracle, 
told  Herodotus  that  the  Pelasgians  in  course  of  time 
adopted  the  names  of  their  theoi  from  Egypt  and  the 
credulous  historian  believed  that  the  names  of  all  the 
Greek  .gods,  with  few  exceptions,  had  always  existed  in 
Egypt.  Many  modern  scholars,  like  Foucart,  have  over- 
estimated this  Egyptian  influence  on  the  early  religion  of 
Greece.  The  truth  is  that  the  early  Greeks  were  influ- 
enced by  religious  ideas  not  only  from  Egypt  but  from 
the  whole  East.  Many  Greek  legends,  like  those  of  lo, 
Danaus  and  Cadmus,  tell  us  of  this  Eastern  influence, 
and  the  later  world  oi  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  was  touched 
at  every  point  by  the  South — Crete,  Egypt  and  Libya, 
and  by  the  East — Phoenicia,  Syria  and  Asia  Minor.  The 
recent  excavations  in  Egypt  and  on  the  prehistoric  sites 
of  the  ^igean  area  have  shown  that  this  contact  was  far 
older  than  Homer.  The  pre-Hellenic  civilization  was 
saturated  with  Oriental  influences.  Flinders  Petrie,  in 
1887,  discovered  at  Kahun  in  Middle  Egypt  foreign  pot- 

278 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

tery  which  he  called  ^Egean,  and  later  discoveries  in  Crete 
showed  that  he  was  right.  This  pottery,  found  in  deposits 
of  the  XII  and  XIII  dynasties  (before  1800  to  about 
1700  B.C.),  is  of  the  type  known  as  Kamarais  ware  and 
belongs  to  the  Middle  Minoan  period  of  Crete.  Again, 
in  1899,  the  same  archaeologist  found  at  Tell-el-Amarna 
in  Egypt,  in  deposits  of  the  early  fourteenth  century  B.C., 
many  fragments  of  Mycenaean  pottery.  Mycenaean  vases 
were  also  found  in  Phoenician  Sidon  in  1885,  and  later 
the  tombs  of  Enkomi  in  Cyprus  disclosed  articles  of 
Mycenaean  art  of  the  fourteenth  and  thirteenth  centuries 
B.C.  On  the  beautiful  inlaid  sword  blades  from  the  shaft 
graves  of  Mycenae/  Egyptian  animals  are  represented — 
ichneumons — commonly  known  as  Pharaoh's  rats — hunt- 
ing duck.  Conversely,  vases  from  Mycenae  have  been 
found  in  Egypt,  Phoenicia  and  Cyprus.  Thus  we  see  that 
if  the  Pelasgians  did  not  borrow,  it  was  not  from  a  lack 
of  opportunity;  the  wonder  is  that  all  this  foreign  influ- 
ence was  not  too  great  for  them  to  assimilate. 

THE  HELLENIC  INVASION 

Before  reaching  Homer's  pantheon,  a  third  and  last 
step  must  be  noted  in  the  prehistoric  development  of 
Greek  religion.  This  Mediterranean  religion,  after  de- 
veloping from  within  and  assimilating  foreign  influences 
for  centuries,  was  finally  taken  over  by  the  Hellenic  in- 
vaders, and  the  resultant  union  of  religious  beliefs  and 
practices  formed  what  we  call  the  historic  religion  of 
Greece.  Who  these  Hellenes  were  and  when  they  estab- 
lished themselves  in  the  Balkans  has  given  rise  to  endless 
discussion.  For  many  reasons  it  is  certain  they  came 
from  the  North,  being  gradually  pushed  southward  by 
successive  waves  of  migration  of  Indo-European  tribes 
from  the  Danube  valley.  When  they  first  appeared  in 
Greece  we  cannot  definitely  say,  as  tradition  preserves 
no  memory  of  the  movement.  The  first  migration  seems 

279 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

to  have  been  followed,  after  an  interval  of  some  centuries, 
by  a  second,  which  came  by  way  of  the  Northwest,  to 
which  many  traditions  bear  witness.  These  Dorians,  as 
we  call  them,  instead  of  dispossessing  their  predecessors, 
passed  straight  on  across  Central  Greece  and  the  Corin- 
thian Gulf  into  the  Peloponnesus,  where,  blending  with 
the  Mediterraneans,  they  formed  the  bulk  of  the  later 
Greek  population  in  the  peninsula ;  thence  they  passed  on 
into  Crete,  the  isles  of  the  Archipelago  and  south- 
eastern Asia  Minor.  This  later  movement  took  place  not 
later  than  the  twelfth  century.  Whether  the  walls,  palaces 
and  tombs  of  Argos,  Tiryns  and  Mycenae  were  built  by 
them  or  wrested  from  the  earlier  peoples  is  not  important, 
for  the  civilization  which  they  reflect  was  certainly  not 
Hellenic.  The  Greek  historians  Herodotus  and  Thucyd- 
ides  were  both  aware  of  the  fact  that  these  Hellenes 
were  late-comers  into  Greece.  The  latter  says  that  they, 
rather  than  the  Pelasgians,  were  the  leaders  of  the  war- 
riors against  Troy,  the  first  collective  enterprise  which 
gave  unity  to  Greece,  and  that  the  Greeks  owed  to  this 
unity  their  Pantheon  and  differentiated  gods.  Long  ago 
Gladstone  remarked  on  the  analogies  between  the  Achaeans 
of  Homer  and  the  Germans  oi  Tacitus — their  tall  stature, 
fair  hair  and  blue  eyes.  Ridgeway,  Hall  and  many  other 
more  scientific  scholars  have  since  shown  that  the  Achaeans 
of  Homer  differed  also  in  many  essentials  of  their  material 
culture — in  their  armor,  dress  and  customs  of  burial — 
from  the  Mycenaean  Mediterraneans,  but  agreed  with  that 
of  the  northern  barbarians  of  Central  Europe.  The  Hel- 
lenes, then,  were  merely  a  branch  of  those  northerners 
who,  as  Dorians  or  later  Gauls,  have  repeatedly  invaded 
the  south  and  blended  with  the  indigenous  peoples. 

Miss  Harrison  professes  to  see  the  atmosphere  of  the 
Norse  Eddas  in  Homer's  Olympians.  They  are  often 
depicted  as  big  and  turbulent  because  they  are,  in  part, 
northern  gods,  and  size  and  excess  are  Teutonic  rather 

280 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

than  Greek  characteristics.  Thus  Poseidon,  the  Earth- 
shaker,  goes  into  battle  on  the  plains  of  Ilium  shouting  as 
"  loud  as  nine  or  ten  thousand  men  shout  in  battle,"  and 
this  cry  "  puts  strength  into  the  Achseans'  hearts."  Just 
so  Tacitus  was  surprised  at  the  "  harsh  note  and  con- 
fused roar  "  of  the  German  warriors,  which  was  "  not 
so  much  an  articulate  sound  as  a  general  cry  of  valor  " 
(Germania,  iii).  The  same  god  takes  three  strides  from 
Samothrace  and  with  the  fourth  is  in  JEgae  of  Achsea — 
surely  the  stride  of  a  northern  giant.  The  brutal  rage 
of  Zeus  is  northern,  as  when  he  "  wills  to  dash  the  other 
gods  from  their  seats"  (II.  i,  580-1),  or  when  he 
"  caught  his  son  by  the  foot  and  hurled  him  from  the 
divine  threshold  of  Olympus  "  (II.  i,  591).  Zeus  "  beats 
his  wife  with  stripes  and  hangs  her  up  with  anvils  to 
her  feet"  (II.  xv,  17  seq.) — a  scene  which  immediately 
suggests  the  well-known  plight  of  Gunther  on  his  wedding 
night  in  the  So-ng  of  the  Nibelungs.  Zeus  tells  Hera  she 
is  so  vengeful  that  "  she  would  like  to  eat  Priam  alive  " 
(II.  iv,  34).  But,  as  Miss  Harrison  says,  such  is  the 
magic  of  Homer's  verse  that  we  forget  these  are  not  the 
ways  of  Greek  gods.  Homer's  gods  are  simply,  in  the 
main,  foreigners ;  they  make  no  claim  to  having  created 
the  world  like  other  gods  have  done,  but  only  to  have 
conquered  it.  They  are  royal  robbers,  who  attend  neither 
to  agriculture  nor  government,  but  fill  their  time  with 
feasting  and  fighting,  with  love-making  and  intrigue. 

Long  before  history  began,  then,  these  factors,  primi- 
tive Pelasgian  beliefs,  Oriental  influences,  and  after  mil- 
lennia, it  may  be,  of  this  fusion,  successive  impulses  from 
the  north,  were  transformed  by  the  Epic  poets  into  the 
Olympian  system.  With  the  Homeric  age  the  fusion  was 
complete  and  the  Greek  religious  spirit  had  acquired  its 
characteristic  trend.  The  poets  gathered  the  mountain 
gods  of  the  Hellenic  invaders  into  a  family  on  Olympus, 
their  old  sacred  hill.  The  gods  were  called  Olympian 

281 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

from  this  mountain  and  from  Olympia  in  Elis,  where  the 
greatest  of  them  had  his  greatest  festival,  two  places  at 
opposite  ends  of  Greece,  showing  the  Hellenic  migrations 
southward — migrations  which  are  proven  by  history  and 
dialect.  For  a  long  time  we  believed  they  were  primi- 
tive ;  their  bright  forms  dazzled  us  into  believing  that  they 
had  no  background.  We  now  know  that  centuries  of  de- 
velopment lay  behind  them,  that  they  were  late  comers 
imposed  on  a  very  different  background  which  has  been 
disclosed  to  us  by  the  kind  of  evidence  we  have  outlined. 

THE    HOMERIC    POEMS  AND   THE   OLYMPIAN    SYSTEM 

Under  this  title  I  shall  not  introduce  you  to  the  age-long 
Homeric  question — thedate  and  authorship  of  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  these  incomparable  poems  are 
the  meagre  survivors  of  an  immense  Epic  literature  which 
slowly  grew  up  in  Greece  and  Ionia  in  the  Heroic  Age — 
a  period  roughly  comprising  the  twelfth  to  the  eighth 
centuries  B.C.,  and  that  they  reflect  largely  the  tradition 
of  the  Hellenic  invaders.  Modern  destructive  criticism 
has  doubted  the  existence  of  a  poet  named  Homer  and 
contents  itself  with  the  belief  that  the  Epics  which  bear 
that  name  are,  in  their  existing  form,  the  product  of 
various  bards  and  ages,  and  that  they  received  substan- 
tially their  present  form  under  Peisistratus,  the  tyrant  of 
Athens,  who,  in  the  sixth  pre-Christian  century,  had  them 
arranged  to  be  recited  at  the  Panathenaic  festival  in 
Athens. 

Sir  Gilbert  Murray  has  shown  that  the  Olympian  re- 
ligion came  to  Greece  as  a  sort  of  reformation,  for  with 
all  its  imperfections  it  brought  a  kind  of  order  into  the 
chaos  of  gods  which  had  slowly  evolved  among  the  Medi- 
terranean inhabitants  of  the  ^Egean  area.  The  new  sys- 
tem was  patriarchal  and  monogamous  in  character;  that 
of  the  ^Egeans  and  Hittites  had  been  matrilinear  and 
saturated  with  ideas  of  polygamy,  sex-emblems  and  fer- 

282 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

tility  rites  and  goddesses.  It  was  also  aristocratic,  for 
the  Homeric  poems  were  the  literature  of  the  chieftains 
and  consequently  largely  free  of  popular  superstitions. 
However,  in  their  present  form  they  were  never  court 
poems,  though  they  may  have  originated  in  lays  sung  by 
travelling  bards  in  royal  castles.  Only  in  their  latest 
strata  do  they  show  traces  of  earlier  Mediterranean  be- 
liefs— ancestor  worship,  propitiation  of  the  dead  and  be- 
lief in  the  ghost  world.  In  the  main  they  were  Ionian 
in  origin  and  it  was  the  progressive  and  sceptical  lonians 
who  were  best  fitted  to  lead  in  a  reform  against  the  older 
popular  beliefs  and  practices.  These  lonians  were  de- 
scended from  the  men  who  had  fled  across  the  ^Egean 
before  the  later  Hellenes  and  they  possessed  the  same 
spirit  of  freedom  which  the  men  of  the  Heroic  Age  had 
displayed.  Surrounded  by  barbarous  tribes  of  the  interior 
of  Asia  Minor,  they  were  the  first  to  feel  that  they  were 
Hellenes  as  opposed  to  barbarians,  and,  long  before  the 
greatness  of  Athens,  had  become  the  most  cultured 
representatives  of  the  Hellenic  race. 

Whereas  in  most  countries  the  oldest  surviving  litera- 
ture is  religious  in  character — like  the  Hindu  Vedas,  col- 
lections of  hymns  to  the  gods  for  purposes  of  worship, 
or  the  Gathas  of  the  Avesta,  containing  the  utterances 
of  the  Iranian  prophet — the  Greek  Epic  was  secular  in 
origin.  The  old  robber  kings  of  the  Heroic  Age  had 
had  little  interest  in  building  up  a  powerful  religion,  but 
left  this,  like  all  honest  work,  to  the  common  folk.  Nor 
was  it  to  be  expected  that  the  educated  bards  of  Ionia, 
who  sang  of  the  glorious  deeds  of  these  kings  long  since 
passed  away,  should  have  added  much  religious  sentiment 
to  a  system  which  they  looked  upon  more  as  romance  than 
religion.  They  had  little  faith  or  reverence  for  the 
Olympians  and  consequently  the  gods  play  a  far  more 
human  role  in  the  poems  than  that  assigned  to  them  by 
later  Greek  religion.  The  Ionian  rhapsodes  merely  trans- 

283 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

formed  with  their  magic  minstrelsy  the  kings  and  gods 
of  the  barbarous  past  and  changed  the  old  era  of  bru- 
tality into  one  of  chivalrous  adventure.  Whatever  was 
good  in  the  old  tradition  was  kept,  while  all  the  rest 
was  either  passed  over  or  refined  away.  They  tried  to 
bring  order  into  the  old  religious  chaos  and  adapt  it 
to  a  new  social  order.  Though  the  Epic  largely  failed  in 
its  aims,  the  Olympian  religion  by  1000  B.C.  had  super- 
seded the  Pelasgian  at  its  ancient  sacred  centres — Delphi, 
Argos,  Olympia — and  was  publicly  professed.  The  poems, 
which  at  first  had  been  composed  for  the  amusement  of 
the  nobles,  became  in  course  of  time  the  literature  of  the 
people,  and  were  recited  to  the  multitudes  at  the  various 
festivals.  The  Olympian  divinities,  radiating  especially 
from  the  recitation  of  the  poems  at  the  Panathenaic  festi- 
val at  Athens,  became  not  only  for  the  Athenians  but  for 
all  the  Greeks  ideals  of  humanity  and  the  foundation  of 
the  religion  of  the  historical  Greeks. 

Let  us  rapidly  survey  the  chief  characteristics  of 
Homer's  system.  Though  much  of  the  picture  is  missing, 
still  the  poet  gives  us  a  fairly  complete  and  consistent 
account  of  an  advanced  polytheism.  The  Olympians  are 
sharply  defined  personalities,  clear-cut  individuals,  colos- 
sal men  and  women,  fairer  and  stronger  than  mortals,  but 
still  conceived  in  their  glorified  image.  They  are  so 
humanly  conceived  that  the  later  artist  could  embody  in 
sculpture  or  painting  ideas  straight  from  Homer's  de- 
scriptions. This  is  exemplified  by  the  tradition  handed 
down  by  Strabo  that  those  well-known  lines  in  the  first 
book  of  the  Iliad  (528-30),  which  close  the  scene  in 
which  Thetis  importunes  Zeus  in  behalf  of  her  son 
Achilles,  suggested  to  Phidias  the  conception  of  his  most 
famous  work,  the  gold  and  ivory  statue  of  the  father  of 
gods  and  men  for  the  temple  at  Olympia :  "  He  spake 
and  with  his  steel-grey  brows  Cronus'  son  nodded  assent, 

284 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

and  the  immortal  locks  fell  waving  from  his  divine  head, 
and  he  shook  mighty  Olympus." 

These  human  gods  are  able  to  work  wonders  and  to 
take  on  any  shape  they  will.  They  dwell  together  on  the 
lofty  crowned  Olympus  in  Thessaly  and  form  a  political 
community  with  its  hierarchy  of  rank  and  duty,  its  con- 
tentions for  honor  and  power,  its  occasional  revolutions 
and  political  intrigues,  its  public  meetings  and  festivals. 
In  a  word,  life  on  Olympus  is  a  magnified  picture  of  life 
on  earth.  Though  superhuman,  they  are  like  mortals  in 
the  ordinary  necessities  of  life,  requiring  food  and  drink 
and  sleep.  The  highest  of  them — Zeus,  Apollo,  Hera, 
Hermes,  Athena — were  not  nature  gods  like  the  person- 
alities of  the  Vedas,  bound  up  with  the  forces  of  the 
natural  world.  Apollo  was  not  the  Sun  nor  Athena  the 
Sky,  but  they  were  beings  with  powers  as  real  to  the 
Greeks  as  Christ  and  Mary  are  to  Christians.  Even  Zeus, 
though  responsible  for  the  phenomena  of  sky  and  air,  was 
not  the  thunder  nor  the  sky — even  if  a  few  indications 
point  to  the  influence  of  earlier  animistic  conceptions  of 
the  divine  sky.  A  few  lesser  divinities,  like  the  gods  of 
the  winds  and  rivers,  the  nymphs  and  fauns,  were  pure 
nature  powers  and  never  became  fully  anthropomorphic. 
Thus  Hestia,  "  Holy  Hearth,"  Helios  the  Sun,  Selene 
the  Moon,  Gsea  the  Earth,  never  became  fully  personal, 
for  these  had  their  origin  in  the  remote  animistic  period 
and  survived  to  the  latest  times.  Though  animate,  they 
had  little  religious  value  and  exerted  little  influence  on 
the  moral,  social  and  spiritual  natures  of  the  Greeks. 
Like  mortals,  the  Olympians  were  subject  to  moral  weak- 
ness and  Olympus  merely  reflected  earthly  ethical  notions. 
The  Ionian  bards  did  not  always  take  them  seriously, 
but  often  used  them  in  their  poetry  for  purposes  of  orna- 
ment, and,  sometimes,  as  in  the  later  strata  of  the  Odys- 
sey, even  for  burlesque.  They  accorded  little  reverence 
to  Zeus  or  Hera.  Zeus  is  as  majestic  as  his  thunder  in 

45 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

his  celestial  aspect,  but  is  far  below  mortals  when  viewed 
as  father  and  husband,  while  Hera  is  anything  but  a  duti- 
ful consort.  Ares  is  despised  as  a  bloodthirsty  Thracian 
coward,  while  Aphrodite  is  rebuked  for  joining  in  the 
fray  of  men.  These  two  are  the  subjects  of  a  very  melo- 
dramatic scene  in  a  famous  passage  of  the  Odyssey.  In 
short,  only  three  Olympians  are  respectfully  handled— 
Apollo,  Poseidon  and  Athena.  Gladstone  summed  it  up 
well  by  saying  that  none  of  Homer's  gods  was  as  good 
as  the  swineherd  Eumaeus. 

The  blend  of  the  religious  ideas  of  the  northerners 
and  southerners  explains  some  of  these  incongruities. 
The  nearer  the  Olympians  approach  to  the  old  Mediter- 
ranean nature  gods,  the  more  reverend  do  they  become. 
We  laugh  at  the  lame  smith  of  the  gods  puffing  and 
blowing  through  Olympus'  halls,  but  we  find  Hephaestus, 
the  old  fire-god,  in  combat  with  the  river-god  Xanthus, 
a  truly  majestic  figure.  The  greater  the  interference  of 
the  gods  in  the  affairs  of  men,  the  later  is  the  composi- 
tion. However,  despite  all  the  levity  displayed  in  the 
poems,  Romer's  deeper  utterances  impute  an  advanced 
morality  to  the  supreme  god  Zeus,  who,  though  revengeful 
and  jealous  like  Jahweh,  is  generally  pictured  as  a  god 
of  righteousness  and  pity  toward  men.  In  the  opening 
lines  of  the  Odyssey  he  says  it  is  not  the  gods  but  the 
wickedness  of  men's  hearts  which  brings  evil.  He  is  the 
protector  of  the  good  and  the  punisher  of  the  wicked; 
whoever  neglects  the  prayers  of  the  unfortunate  or  vio- 
lates the  sanctity  of  suppliant  or  guest  receives  his  recom- 
pense of  punishment.  There  is  even  a  glimmering  in  the 
poems  of  the  dark  powers  of  the  underworld,  which 
send  forth  the  Erinyes  to  ptinish  the  perjurer. 

On  the  whole,  then,  the  religious  tone  of  Homer  is 
in  harmony  with  advanced  notions  of  morality.  The  atmos 
phere  of  the  poems  is  bright  and  cheerful,  tKe  service  is 
beautiful  though  solemn  with  hymn  and  dance.  The  rela- 

386 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

tionship  existing  between  the  gods  and  men  is  generally 
sociable.  The  ritual  is  simple  and  on  a  high  plane  of  the- 
ism; it  shows  but  little  trace  of  savage  rites  and  is  far 
freer  from  magic  than  that  of  later  ages.  Sacrifice  is  a 
friendly  communion  with  the  god  revealing  a  sense  of  sin 
and  need  of  expiation.  The  favor  of  the  Olympians,  like 
that  of  northern  gods,  is  gained  by  the  offering  of  meat 
and  wine.  The  cult  has  altars,  temples,  the  beginning 
of  priesthoods  and  even  idols. 

THE    HOMERIC    HELL 

We  moderns  have  a  feeling  that  religion  ought  to 
concern  itself  with  the  question  of  life  after  death.  But 
the  Homeric  system,  while  telling  us  much  of  theology 
and  ritual,  gives  us  little  notion  of  eschatology.  The  gods, 
to  be  sure,  are  immortal,  but  good  men  do  not  go  to 
Olympus  to  live  with  them  nor  bad  ones  to  Tartarus. 
If  we  except  certain  late  additions  to  the  poems,  we  find 
that  these  are  little  concerned  with  any  concept  of  the 
soul-life  after  death,  and  that  they  show  neither  any 
cult  of  the  dead  nor  need  of  propitiating  them,  though 
we  know  that  the  Mycenaean  Greek  had  such  beliefs  and 
practices.  The  fear  of  the  ghost  world  seems,  for  cer- 
tain reasons,  to  have  grown  strong  in  the  seventh  cen- 
tury, and  we  have  a  reflection  of  it  in  the  later  strata  of 
the  Odyssey,  especially  in  the  Nekyia  or  Descent  of 
Odysseus  into  Hell  in  the  eleventh  book,  and  the  scene 
copied  from  it  at  the  opening  of  the  last  book,  in  which 
the  wooers  are  escorted  down  the  dank  ways  by  Hermes. 
The  Descent,  the  most  striking  episode  of  the  Epic,  seems 
to  have  little  in  common  with  the  Olympian  system,  but 
rather,  in  the  main,  to  be  the  recrudescence  of  older 
Pelasgian  beliefs  of  the  hereafter.  Christ  believes  it  was 
influenced  by  Egyptian  ideas.  The  catalogue  of  famous 
women  (xi,  225-332)  is  manifestly  the  composition  of  a 
bard  of  the  Hesiodic  School.  The  description  of  Hades 

287 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

itself,  which  Odysseus,  represented  as  still  seated  at  the 
trench  without,  could  not  have  entered,  and  especially 
the  picture  of  retributive  punishment  meted  out  by 
Minos  to  certain  exemplary  sinners — Tantalus,  Sisyphus, 
Tityus  (566-627) — are  quite  out  of  harmony  with  Hom- 
er's spirit  and  have  been  assigned  by  scholars  to  a  late 
rhapsodist — perhaps  to  Onomacritus,  the  poet  of  Peisis- 
tratus's  time,  as  Wilamowitz  believes — who  took  the 
scenes  from  Orphism,  the  new  religion  which  had  de- 
veloped by  the  sixth  century,  when  Orphic  mystic  societies 
were  teaching  that  only  initiated  and  purified  souls  could 
escape  the  torments  of  Hell. 

This  Homeric  picture  of  Hades'  realm  is  dark  and 
gloqmy  in  the  extreme  and  had  a  tremendous  influence, 
not  only  on  all  succeeding  poets,  but  on  the  minds  of  the 
ordinary  worshipers,  an  influence  which  can  be  traced 
all  through  the  subsequent  centuries  of  Greek  history. 
It  has  often  been  remarked  that  Homer's  picture  of  life 
on  earth  is  hopeless  and  melancholy.  Almost  every  re- 
flective passage  contains  a  note  of  sadness.  Thus  Glaucus 
(II.  vi,  146  seq.),  says  to  Diomedes:  "  Even  as  are  the 
generations  of  leaves,  such  are  those  likewise  of  men." 
But  if  life  on  earth  was  hard  and  cheerless,  it  was  far 
more  desirable  than  death;  if  man  were  the  plaything  of 
the  gods  on  earth,  there  was  no  hope  that  the  hereafter 
would  right  these  wrongs  and  inequalities,  no  hope  that 
he  who  had  lived  a  pious  life  would  receive  any  reward. 
As  Gruppe  has  said :  "  Behind  the  woe  in  which  he  thinks 
he  lives,  the  Homeric  Greek  sees  a  greater  never-ending 
woe  before." 5  For  all  the  hopeless  fancies  conjured 
up  by  the  imagination  of  man  as  to  his  future  state,  none 
is  so  hopeless  as  that  depicted  in  the  Nekyia.  Erebos,  the 
realm  of  King  Hades,  is  either  far  to  the  West,  or,  like 
the  mediaeval  Hell,  deep  down  below  the  earth.  Tartarus, 
the  deepest  abyss,  is  a  penitentiary  hell  not  for  the  wicked, 

4  Griechische  Mythologie  und  Religions^cschichte,  I,  p.  1010. 

288 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

but  for  rebellious  Titans.  The  Elysian  Fields  are  men- 
tioned only  once  in  the  poems  (Od.  iv,  561)  and  the  Isles 
of  the  Blest  not  at  all — for  these  happy  abodes  were  not 
yet  definitely  conceived.  The  meads  of  asphodel,  on 
which  the  spirits  tread,  are  frequently  mentioned;  the 
gray  leaves  and  yellow  blossoms  of  this  plant,  to-day  so 
frequently  seen  on  Greek  graves,  should  leave  little  doubt 
that  they  were  symbolic  of  the  pallo'r  of  death  and  the 
gloom  of  the  underworld.  Homer's  heroes,  good  and  bad, 
are  sent  to  this  cheerless  abode,  where  their  existence  is 
even  more  terrible  than  their  dwelling  place.  Rohde 
says  it  is  wrong  to  speak  of  a  future  life  in  Homer  at 
all;  the  spirits  below  lead  only  a  shadowy  copy  of  life  on 
earth,  an  existence  almost  as  neutral  as  Sheol.  Even 
this  shadowy  existence  is  not  everlasting — its  one  ray 
of  hope ;  for  Odysseus  sees  no  ghost  older  than  the  second 
or  third  generation  before  his  time.  Pindar's  account 
(frag.  129)  of  the  dead  entertaining  themselves  with 
horse-bracing  and  athletic  contests,  with  games  of  draughts 
and  music  of  the  lyre,  has  no  counterpart  here.  The  ghost 
world  had  gained  much  additional  vigor  by  his  time. 
The  very  utterance  of  the  "  strengthless  heads  of  the 
dead  "  is  but  a  timorous,  inarticulate  squeak,  which  the 
poet  likens  to  the  gibbering  of  bats.  Their  spectral  forms, 
bereft  of  bones  and  sinews,  "  sweep  shadow-like  around  " 
and  all,  with  the  exception  of  the  old  Theban  seer  Teire- 
sias,  are  devoid  of  intelligence  and  can  be  recalled  only 
to  a  momentary  consciousness  by  drinking  the  blood  of 
the  victim  which  Odysseus  had  slain  over  the  trench.  Here 
there  is  no  bliss,  no  rest,  no  peace.  Amid  such  gruesome 
surroundings  Achilles  could  well  reply  to  Odysseus's  words 
of  praise  for  his  former  renown  (Od.  xi,  488  seq. )  :  "  Nay, 
speak  not  comfortably  to  me  of  death,  oh  great  Odysseus. 
Rather  would  I  live  on  ground  the  hireling  of  another, 
with  a  landless  man  who  has  no  great  livelihood,  than 
bear  sway  among  all  the  dead  that  be  departed/' 
19  289 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

THE  MYSTERY  CULTS 

It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  the  dark  features  of  such 
a  view  of  the  hereafter  should  have  called  forth  a  protest 
which  proclaimed  a  definite  hope  of  future  happiness  and 
a  less  definite  fear  of  future  misery.  Such  ideas  were 
communicated  by  the  Mysteries,  a  class  of  rites  not  men- 
tioned by  Homer,  the  greatest  of  them  connected  with  a 
god  and  goddess — Dionysus  and  Demeter — who  had  no 
seat  on  Olympus.  These  ceremonies  were  practised  by 
voluntary  associations  of  individuals  who  pledged  them- 
selves not  to  disclose  anything  seen  or  heard  at  the  secret 
meetings.  Each  mystery  had  its  own  apparatus  of  sym- 
bols and  formularies,  so  that  the  initiates  knew  one  an- 
other just  as  Free  Masons  do  now;  each  consisted  of  two 
parts — a  sacrifice  and  rites  in  which  certain  foods  were 
tasted,  objects  seen  and  handled  and  words  spoken.  Why 
certain  Greek  cults  were  secret  and  others  public  is  not 
clear.  The  older  explanation  that  the  mysteries  were 
pre-Hellenic  and  the  conquered  Pelasgians  wished  to  hide 
their  ancient  ceremonies  is  hardly  tenable,  since  in  that 
case  we  should  find  them  not  in  the  hands  of  the  nobles, 
but  of  the  common  folk.  Furthermore,  the  divinities 
chiefly  worshiped  were  Aryan  and  not  Pelasgian.  There 
were  mysteries  in  honor  of  Gaea,  Aglaurus,  and  the 
Graces  in  Attica,  of  Hecate  in  y£gina  and  of  Themis. 
These  may  all  be  related  forms  of  the  Earth-mother, 
powers  connected  with  the  underworld.  The  most  im- 
portant were  the  Orphic  and  Eleusinian  mysteries.  Those 
of  Samothrace,  which  later  rivalled  these  in  attraction, 
were  neither  entirely  Hellenic  in  origin  nor  ever  com- 
pletely Hellenized. 

THE    ORPHIC    MYSTIC    SOCIETIES 

The  Orphic  mystic  societies  introduced  a  Thraco- 
Phrygian  religious  tradition  into  Greece,  which  was  orig- 
inally connected  with  the  wine-god  Dionysus  and  with 

290 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

Sabazius.  An  account  of  these  mysteries  would  mean 
an  account  of  the  Dionysiac  religion;  here  we  can  only 
touch  upon  the  main  doctrines  of  the  sect  and  their  in- 
fluence. The  worship  of  Dionysus,  originally  a  nature- 
god  of  northern  origin,  revealing  his  power  over  the  vine 
and  in  the  underworld,  had  found  its  way  into  Greece  as 
early  as  the  tenth  century  B.C.,  and  by  the  sixth  had  been 
accepted  by  most  of  the  Greek  communities.  The  rites 
were  mystic  and  secret  and  were  performed  mostly  at 
night;  they  were  characterized  by  ecstatic  and  orgiastic 
self-abandonment,  in  which  his  votaries — especially 
women — believed  they  were  united  with  the  god  and 
possessed  his  power  for  a  time.  A  savage  sacrament 
consisted  in  eating  the  raw  flesh  of  an  animal  regarded 
as  the  incarnation  of  the  god.  Thus  the  idea  of  a  god 
dying  and  being  born  again  was  inculcated  in  this  non- 
Greek  worship.  The  taming  of  this  wild  god  of  the 
north  into  a  civic  deity,  and  the  disciplining  of  his  wild 
bands  of  Maenads  into  a  Greek  cult,  was  a  long  and 
difficult  process.  But  slowly  the  savage  elements  dis- 
appeared, though  the  cult  ever  afterwards  remained 
more  emotional  than  any  other. 

This  process  of  transformation  was  arrested  by  a  wave 
of  religious  fervor  which  spread  over  the  mainland  in 
the  seventh  and  sixth  centuries  B.C. — under  the  name 
of  Orpheus,  the  legendary  minstrel  of  Thrace,  to  whom 
the  new  mystic  doctrines  were  ascribed.  This  later  eso- 
teric worship  probably  also  came  from  the  north,  even 
if  indubitable  evidence  of  Cretan  and  Egyptian  influence 
is  found  in  it.  We  know  the  ideas  and  hopes  of  the 
initiates  chiefly  from  a  series  of  gold  foil  tablets  which 
were  found  in  tombs  at  Sybaris,  in  South  Italy,  one  from 
Crete  and  one  from  near  Rome,  which  preserve  fragments 
of  a  metrical  liturgy  or  creed  dating  from  the  third  cen- 
tury B.C.,  if  not  earlier.  These  were  buried  with  the 
Orphic  dead  as  charms  against  the  dangers  which  beset 

291 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

their  journey  below  and  to  open  to  them  the  gates  of 
Heaven,  and  they  form  what  Gomperz  has  rightly  called 
an  "  Orphic  Book  of  the  Dead."  The  initiated  soul 
proclaims  its  divine  descent  in  these  words :  "  I  am  the 
son  of  Earth  and  Starry  Heaven  " ;  "I  come  from  the 
pure  " ;  "  I  have  paid  the  penalty  of  sin  " ;  "I  have  flown 
out  of  the  weary,  sorrowful  circle  of  life."  Its  future 
reward  is  made  certain  by  these  words :  "  O  blessed  and 
happy  one,  thou  hast  put  off  thy  mortality  and  shalt  be- 
come divine." 

This  was  a  new  and  strange  message  to  the  Greeks,  a 
direct  protest  against  the  Homeric  concept  of  the  soul's 
hereafter.  Though  Homer's  picture  of  life  is  melan- 
choly, still  life  is  the  centre  of  interest  and  far  preferable 
to  death.  But  to  the  Orphic,  life  here  in  the  body  is  not 
life,  but  a  living  death.  What  we  call  death  is  merely 
the  door  of  freedom  for  the  soul  from  the  body,  its  prison- 
house.  The  real  life,  then,  is  hereafter,  when  the  soul 
rejoins  its  former  communion  with  the  gods,  for  it  is 
divine  like  them  both  in  its  origin  and  nature. 

When  it  enters  into  a  human  body  it  contracts  sin 
and  its  constant  aim,  like  that  of  a  fallen  angel,  is  release 
and  recovery  of  its  former  glory.  Since  it  lost  its  power 
through  sin,  it  can  regain  it  only  through  purification, 
which  is  accomplished  by  the  observance  of  a  certain  con- 
duct of  life — the  avoidance  of  the  taint  of  meat,  of 
funerals,  of  childbirth.  The  eating  of  flesh  was  regarded 
as  mere  cannibalism,  for  according  to  the  Orphic  doctrine 
of  metempsychosis,  "  the  circle  of  life,"  all  animals  were 
kin.  After  cycles  of  lives  the  soul  finally  reaches  its  goal 
and  lives  on  keeping  its  personality — for  the  Orphics 
had  no  notion  of  absorption  like  the  Buddhists.  Thus 
under  the  term  Orphism  we  class  all  the  elements  lack- 
ing in  the  Epic  tradition:  a  sense  of  original  sin,  the 
soul  being  condemned  to  earthly  existence  as  a  punish- 
ment for  the  early  crime  of  the  Titans,  man's  ancestors, 

392 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

who  had  treacherously  slain  the  young  god  Zagreus; 
the  need  of  purification  for  that  sin;  the  idea  of  the 
incarnate  man-god;  escape  from  evil' and  immortality. 
These  elements,  foreign  to  the  Olympian  system,  were 
un-Greek  influences  from  the  north,  from  Crete,  Egypt 
and  Asia  Minor,  elements  which  easily  fused  with  the 
older  Mediterranean  beliefs. 

These  doctrines  were  especially  strong  in  Crete  and 
Athens.  In  South  Italy  they  were  early  crossed  by  Pythag- 
oreanism,  the  influence  probably  being  mutual.  The 
Pythagorean  brotherhoods  became  its  militant  orders  and 
their  priests  were  the  first  European  missionaries.  The 
downfall  of  these  societies  certainly  saved  Greece  from 
the  danger  of  establishing  Orphism  as  a  secular  power, 
which  would  have  strangled  the  free  Greek  spirit  with 
sacerdotalism  and  all  that  goes  with  it.  Henceforth  its 
influence  was  private,  and  some  of  the  greatest  Greek 
minds  were  attracted  by  it.  Pindar's  eschatology  seems 
to  have  been  largely  inspired  by  it;  his  idea  of  the  next 
world  as  a  Purgatory,  or  place  of  penance  and  purgation 
from  personal  and  ancestral  taint,  was  Orphic,  as  also 
his  doctrine  of  reincarnation  and  final  reward  for  the 
purified  soul.  The  Orphic  idea  of  the  divine  origin  of 
the  soul  is  seen  in  one  of  his  fragments  (102)  :  "  Blessed 
is  he  who,  having  seen  these  things,  goes  below  the 
hollow  earth ;  he  sees  the  end  of  life  and  the  beginning  of 
the  gods."  Though  ./Eschylus  and  Sophocles  held  aloof 
from  Orphism,  Euripides,  true  to  his  nature,  was  both 
attracted  to  and  repelled  by  it.  In  his  inspired  drama, 
the  Bacchanals,  he  makes  the  votaries  rejoice  to  be  one 
with  the  god  and  to  be  called  by  his  name.  The  philoso- 
pher Empedocles  borrowed  much  from  the  new  faith — his 
insistence  on  guilt  and  purification,  and  his  cycle  of  rein- 
carnations. 

Plato,  though  protesting,  like  Theophrastus  and  Plu- 
tarch after  him,  against  the  professional  mystery  mongers 

293 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

and  spiritual  quacks,  who,  under  the  name  of  Orpheus, 
went  about  in  the  fourth  century  vending  incantations 
and  promises  of  indulgences  through  purifications  and 
mystic  initiations,  still  was  intensely  interested  in  the  real 
beliefs  of  the  Orphics  and  deeply  indebted  to  them  for 
some  of  his  deepest  thinking.  His  doctrine  of  the  soul 
in  the  Phaedrus  is  Orphic;  his  cosmic  Eros  or  Love  in 
that  dialogue  and  in  the  Timaeus  was  an  Orphic  god ;  his 
glorification  of  inspired  madness,  which  he  calls  one  of 
Heaven's  blessings,  certainly  came  from  the  Thracian 
cult  of  Dionysus ;  his  immortal  soul  striving  to  reach  the 
heights  of  the  god-life,  in  its  several  incarnations  im- 
proving through  righteousness  and  deteriorating  through 
unrighteousness,  making  man  in  the  one  case  and  beast 
in  the  other,  was  based  on  the  Orphic  "  wheel  of  life." 
According  to  Plato,  each  soul  has  the  choice  to  go  upwards 
or  downwards  each  thousand  years,  and  it  must  pass 
through  a  cycle  of  ten  thousand  years  before  it  reaches 
its  original  state  again,  for  only  the  souls  of  philosophers 
and  lovers  are  enabled,  after  choosing  the  better  life 
three  times,  to  escape  in  three  thousand.  Plato's  doctrine 
of  the  soul's  anamnesis  or  remembrance  of  the  glorious 
sights  of  justice,  truth,  wisdom  and  temperance  among 
the  gods  is  also  based  on  the  Orphic  well  of  remembrance, 
Mnemosyne.  In  the  Phaedo  he  makes  Socrates  quote  the 
founder  of  the  mysteries  as  saying  that  (6gc,  Jowett) 
"  he  who  passed  unsanctified  and  uninitiated  into  the 
world  below  will  live  in  a  slough,  but  he  who  arrives  there* 
after  initiation  and  purification,  will  dwell  among  the 
gods."  For  "  many,  as  they  say  in  the  mysteries,  are  the 
thyrsus-bearers,  but  few  are  the  mystics,"  meaning,  as 
I  interpret  the  words,  the  true  philosophers.  In  brief, 
it  may  be  said  that  this  mystery  religion  influenced  the 
poet-philosopher  far  more  than  all  the  gods  of  Homer. 
In  Hellenistic  days,  as  we  shall  see,  Orphism  received 

294 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

a  fresh  lease  of  life  at  the  beginning  of  the  new  era 
of  individualism,  and  as  late  as  Plutarch's  time  continued 
to  give  consolation  to  the  afflicted.  Its  lofty  ideals  of 
morality  also  contributed  much  to  Christianity.  The 
Orphic  Hell  influenced  the  picture  of  similar  tortures 
depicted  in  the  Apocalyptic  literature.  Even  in  the  Middle 
Ages  its  influence  was  still  felt,  when  the  horrors  of  the 
Christian  ghost  world  were  increased  by  the  barbarous 
imagination  of  the  north. 

THE  ELEUSINIAN  MYSTERIES 

The  most  pan-Hellenic  of  the  mysteries  were  those 
celebrated  at  Eleusis,  near  Athens,  in  honor  of  Demeter 
and  Kore,  with  a  third  figure  in  the  background — the 
god  of  the  lower  world,  euphemistically  called  Eubouleus 
or  Pluto,  the  ravisher  and  husband  of  Kore.  These  rites 
were  originally  agrarian  and  tribal  and  seem  to  have  been 
restricted  to  certain  Eleusinian  clans.  By  the  fifth  cen- 
tury B.C.,  however,  they  had  become  a  recognized  branch 
of  Athenian  public  worship,  though  only  initiates  were 
allowed  to  be  present  at  the  ceremonies.  By  that  time, 
in  contrast  to  the  Orphic  mysteries,  which  always  re- 
mained sectarian,  they  were  opened  to  all  Athenians  and 
all  Greeks  without  distinction  of  city  or  tribe,  to  "  all 
of  intelligible  speech  and  pure  of  blood."  Afterwards 
they  were  open  even  to  women  and  children  and  slaves, 
and,  later,  to  Romans.  When  Athens  became  the  focus 
of  Greek  life,  the  Eleusinia  became  as  truly  pan-Hellenic 
in  character  as  the  oracle  at  Delphi  or  the  games  at 
Olympia,  and  their  power  did  not  wane  until  the  advent 
of  Christianity. 

To-day  we  know  much  more  about  the  Eleusinian 
mysteries  than  did  the  scholars  of  a  generation  ago,  and 
yet  we  know  but  little.  Modern  students  of  comparative 
religion  and  anthropology  have  helped  us  a  good  deal  in 

295 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

making  reasonable  hypotheses,  while  archaeology — the 
study  of  vases,  reliefs,  inscriptions,  and  especially  the  re- 
sults of  the  excavations  carried  on  at  Eleusis — has  told 
us  much  of  their  external  organization  and  shown  us  the 
deities  exactly  as  they  appeared  to  the  ancient  initiates. 
We  know  that  a  mimetic  drama  of  the  nature  of  a  mediae- 
val Passion  Play  took  place,  in  which  was  represented 
the  story  of  Demeter's  sorrowful  search  for  her  ravished 
daughter,  and  the  subsequent  marriage  of  Kore  and 
Pluto  and  possibly  the  birth  of  a  sacred  child.  In  the 
production  of  such  a  play  we  know  that  no  elaborate 
scenic  effects  took  place  in  the  Eleusinium  to  represent 
Heaven  and  Hell,  since  the  excavations  there  have  dis- 
cloeed  neither  substructures  nor  underground  passages. 
,We  also  know  that  something  more  than  this  drama  took 
place;  that  the  hierophant  revealed  certain  sacred  objects 
and  celebrated  a  holy  communion.  We  have  no  proof, 
however,  that  a  more  mystic  sacrament  took  place,  in 
which  the  initiates  believed  they  were  partaking  of  the 
body  of  deity,  as  many  scholars  have  assumed.  We  also 
are  assured  that  these  rites  were  not  mere  magical  ones 
intended  to  promote  the  fertility  of  the  fields  or  the  well- 
being  of  the  mystic.  The  secret  of  their  tremendous  influ- 
ence cannot  be  thus  explained. 

Scholars  have  made  unwearying  efforts  to  solve  the 
problem  of  the  inner  esoteric  meaning  of  the  ritual. 
Eleusinian  scenes  on  fifth  century  vases  help  very  little, 
since  it  was  sacrilegious  for  the  painter  to  reveal  the 
mystery.  Pagan  writers,  though  showing  the  good  influ- 
ence of  these  secret  rites,  are  equally  reticent.  Few  of  the 
Church  Fathers,  though  they  were  not  bound  by  scruples, 
were  pagans  in  their  youth — like  Clement  and  Arnobius— 
and  so  could  have  been  initiated.  What  was  this  cen- 
tral mystery?  There  was  certainly  a  sacred  discourse, 
which  could  not  have  been  concerned  merely  with  corn 

296 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

symbolism,  as  Varro  implies,  nor  with  nature  philosophy, 
as  certain  passages  in  Cicero  seem  to  indicate.  A  part 
of  it  may  have  explained  the  sacred  symbols  and  it  may 
have  been  colored  by  the  philosophy  of  the  day.  But 
that  could  not  have  been  all ;  it  is  safe  to  affirm  that  this 
discourse  held  out  to  the  initiates  a  promise  of  future 
happiness.  Just  how  this  was  done  we  cannot  say.  Fou- 
cart's  notion  that  the  whole  object  of  the  mysteries  was, 
like  that  of  the  Egyptian  Book  of  the  Dead,  to  provide 
the  initiates  mere  passwords  and  magic  formulae  to  help 
them  on  their  road  below  and  deliver  them  from  the  ter- 
rors of  Hell,  is  in  harmony  with  his  Egyptianizing  theory 
of  their  origin,  but  can  no  longer  be  maintained,  even  if 
Egyptian  influence  can  be  traced  in  them.  A  passage  in 
Aristotle  helps  us  in  solving  the  mystery.  He  says  that 
the  initiates  "  do  not  learn  anything  so  much  as  feel  cer- 
tain emotions  and  are  put  into  a  certain  mental  attitude." 
Thus  the  appeal  must  have  been  to  the  eye  and  imagina- 
tion— perhaps  through  a  sort  of  religious  mesmerism  in- 
duced by  the  solemnity  of  the  occasion,  something  akin 
to  our  Christian  communion  service  or  Catholic  mass,  a 
phenomenon  not  difficult  to  understand  when  we  remem- 
ber how  susceptible  Greek  imagination  was  to  the  solemn 
pomp  of  religious  pageantry.  The  initiates  would  go 
away,  then,  with  a  sense  of  closer  union  with  the  Powers 
of  the  underworld  and  a  conviction  of  their  future  weal. 
These  mysteries  gave  to  Greek  religion  an  atmosphere  of 
awe  and  mystery  and  promise  which  was  largely  absent 
from  the  public  cult.  They  must  have  awakened  the 
imagination  of  the  initiates  to  great  heights  of  spiritual 
and  moral  grandeur — even  if  our  knowledge  of  them  does 
not  let  us  definitely  postulate  just  what  the  moral  or 
spiritual  dogmas  were  which  they  inculcated.  They  truly 
were,  as  Dr.  Farnell  has  said,  "  the  highest  and  purest  and 
most  spiritual  product  of  Greek  religion." 

297 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

THE  STATE  OF  RELIGION  IN   ATHENS  IN  THE  FIFTH   AND 
FOURTH   CENTURIES  B.C. 

The  period  roughly  extending  from  500  to  338  B.C., 
i.e.,  from  the  beginning  of  the  Persian  wars  to  the  final 
loss  of  Greek  independence  at  the  battle  of  Chaeronea, 
witnessed  in  secular  history  the  ever-memorable  struggle 
of  Greek  and  barbarian,  the  gradual  rise  and  the  down- 
fall of  the  imperial  city  of  Athens,  the  Peloponnesian  war, 
which,  viewed  from  its  results,  was  the  greatest  in  history, 
the  emergence  of  the  Macedonians  as  the  first  world 
power.  In  the  history  of  culture  it  saw  the  bloom  of  the 
Attic  drama  and  of  Greek  lyric  in  Pindar,  the  acme  of 
the  world's  greatest  sculpture  and  architecture,  the  diffu- 
sion of  education  and  'the  rise  of  the  scientific  spirit 
engendered  by  the  Sophists,  and  the  highest  development 
of  philosophy  in  Plato.  In  brief,  not  only  the  restricted 
Periclean  age,  but  the  two  centuries  taken  together  were 
the  greatest  in  the  world's  history.  Consequently,  it  is 
interesting  for  us  to  know  what  the  cultivated  Greeks  in 
general  and  their  greatest  community,  Athens,  in  particu- 
lar thought  about  religion. 

It  is  a  popular  fallacy  that  the  old  Homeric  polytheism 
had  lost  its  hold  on  men's  minds  by  the  end  of  the  fifth 
century.  But  if  we  compare  the  beliefs  then  held  with 
those  of  Homer,  we  shall  find  that  the  same  deities  were 
still  worshiped,  that  no  cult  had  disappeared  nor  any 
of  the  popular  rites  fallen  into  decay.  On  the  contrary, 
during  most  of  the  century,  the  old  system  was  stronger 
than  ever — even  the  old  animistic  belief  in  the  river  gods 
being  retained.  New  deities  were  added,  as  Pan  from 
Arcadia  at  the  beginning  of  the  century,  and  Asclepius 
from  Epidaurus  toward  the  close.  While  the  struggle 
against  Hannibal  in  Italy  had  caused  the  old  Roman 
faith  to  be  shaken,  the  Greek  struggle  against  Persia  had 
increased  belief  in  the  gods  who  had  given  them  victory. 
Zeus  then  received  such  titles  as  Hellenics,  "  the  god  of 

298 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

the  Greeks,"  his  highest  political  title,  and  Eleutherios, 
"  the  god  of  freedom."  A  deep  conviction  of  the  part 
which  the  gods  played  in  men's  affairs  grew  up.  Herod- 
otus, Pindar  and  ^Eschylus  looked  upon  the  Persian 
struggle  as  a  conflict  of  moral  forces,  much  as  the  Allies 
look  upon  the  present  European  struggle.  Only  the  Del- 
phic oracle,  which  had  shown  a  vacillating  un-Hellenic 
spirit  during  the  struggle,  had  lost  its  political  influence. 
Again  during  the  Peloponnesian  war  it  had  openly  taken 
the  side  of  Athens'  enemies,  and  so  thereafter  lost  all 
reverence  from  the  Attic  people.  In  the  fourth  century 
B.C.,  Demosthenes  contemptuously  speaks  of  it  as  "  the 
shadow  of  Delphi."  The  only  influence  it  exerted  hence- 
forth was  ethical  and  religious,  when  it  became  a  sort  of 
private  confessional,  which  gave  sacerdotal  advice. 

The  Modernist  spirit  of  Ionia  had  not  yet  vitally 
influenced  the  popular  notions  of  religion.  The  fact  that 
Anaxagoras  and  Protagoras  were  tried  and  Socrates  put 
to  death  shows  how  strong  the  old  polytheism  still  re- 
mained. The  mutilation  of  the  Hernia  on  the  eve  of 
the  sailing  of  the  Sicilian  expedition  toward  the  end  of 
the  century  caused  such  a  commotion  at  Athens  as  indi- 
rectly to  destroy  its  hopes  of  success  and  entail  the  sub- 
sequent downfall  of  the  imperial  city.  People  who  laughed 
at  Aristophanes's  and  Euripides's  burlesques  of  the  gods 
in  the  theatre  were  none  the  less  devoted  to  the  worship 
of  these  deities.  Art  made  anthropomorphism  still 
stronger  throughout  the  fourth  century;  sculptures,  vase 
paintings  and  glyptics  of  this  age  are  still  the  most  per- 
fect examples  of  religious  art.  Perhaps  a  more  spiritual 
belief  than  that  of  Greece  would  not  have  endured  even 
such  masterpieces  with  equal  patience.  In  any  case,  art 
certainly  helped  to  keep  Greek  religion  from  earlier  yield- 
ing to  the  influence  of  alien  cults.  The  philosophers  as 
yet  had  made  little  protest  against  idolatry;  Xenophanes 

299 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

in  the  sixth  century  made  the  most  notable,  while  in  the 
fourth  the  Stoics  condemned  both  temples  and  idols. 

The  influence  of  literature  in  these  centuries  was  no 
less  marked  than  that  of  art.  The  subject  is  too  vast  to 
more  than  adumbrate  here.  It  is  easy  enough  to  collect 
passages  from  Greek  writers  which  bear  on  religion,  but 
it  is  difficult  to  say  how  much  such  material  modified  the 
popular  beliefs.  Pindar,  .^Eschylus  and  Sophocles  seem 
to  have  accepted  the  existing  system  with  but  little  pro- 
test and  they  tried  to  ennoble  rather  than  to  destroy  it. 
Pindar  was  the  first  literary  preacher  of  Greece;  his  Or- 
,  phic  eschatolo-gy  first  raised  the  subject  of  Paradise  to 
the  level  afterwards  attained  by  Dante  and  Milton. 
Sophocles  and  ^Eschylus,  on  the  other  hand,  say  little  of 
the  hereafter;  but  all  three  writers  clearly  teach  the  maj- 
esty and  the  mercy  of  Zeus  and  Destiny.  Pindar  gives 
us  the  brighter  side,  while  ^Eschylus  pictures  the  gloomy 
forces  of  the  world  of  shades.  Pindar  antedates  Plato 
in  protesting  against  the  ignoble  features  of  the  Epic 
myths.  Euripides  belonged  to  a  different  period,  to  the 
Age  of  Enlightenment,  the  mental  attitude  of  Modern- 
ism. Himself  no  philosopher,  incapable  of  formulating 
a  system  of  thought  or  ethics  and  with  few  convictions, 
he  merely  stimulated  others  by  his  doubts  to  think.  We 
cannot  say  what  he  believed,  for  he  believed  different 
things  at  different  times ;  but  it  seems  clear  that  his  ulti- 
mate idea  of  God  was  pantheistic.  He  protested  strongly 
against  immoral  myths,  but  his  religious  influence  on  the 
l>eople  must  have  been  small.  Aristophanes,  his  contem- 
porary, never  understood  him  nor  his  position,  but  cham- 
pioned the  reaction  against  Modernism,  holding  it  up  -to 
ridicule  with  unparalleled  sarcasm. 

The  influence  of  the  philosophical  protest  in  Greece 
against  religion  is  a  subject  on  which  many  volumes 
have  been  written.  The  physical  notions  of  the  early 
lonians,  which  gave  birth  to  the  free  secular  science  of 

300 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

Europe,  were  concerned  with  theories  of  cosmogony 
and  could  not  have  clashed  seriously  with  religion,  be- 
cause there  were  no  sacred  writings.  Though  finding 
little  in  Zeus,  they  did  not  break  with  the  popular  faith, 
but  in  their  explanations  went  back  to  the  Pelasgian 
nature  gods  before  Zeus.  Thus  Thales,  the  first  to  seek 
unity  in  things,  taught  that  the  world  came  from  water, 
i.e.,  the  old  nature  deity  Oceanus.  In  the  sixth  century, 
however,  thinkers  becarne  directly  concerned  with  theology 
and  began  to  speculate  on  the  nature  of  the  godhead. 
Many  of  their  fragments  disclose  ideas  hostile  to  the 
concepts  of  polytheism,  and  the  main  trend  of  their  specu- 
lation was  against  anthropomorphism,  tending  to  define 
the  godhead  not  as  a  person  but  as  a  spiritual  power— 
a  tendency  from  theism  to  pantheism.  Pythagoras,  the 
mathematician  and  Orphic  mystic,  was  hostile  to  the  pub- 
lic worship,  even  though  his  followers  compromised  with 
it.  He  explained  the  godhead  in  mathematical  terms  and 
was  willing  to  accept  the  gods,  if  he  could  only  find  their 
mathematical  equations.  The  strongest  and  severest  pro- 
test against  the  Homeric  system  was  made  in  the  name 
of  reason  and  morals  by  Xenophanes,  the  poet,  theologian 
and  philosopher.  In  his  famous  fragments,  preserved 
to  us  by  Clement  of  Alexandria,  he  thus  assails  polythe- 
istic notions :  "  Mortals  think  the  gods  are  born  and 
have  dress  and  voice  and  form  like  their  own."  "  The 
Ethiopians  imagine  their  gods  are  black  and  flat-nosed: 
the  Thracians  make  theirs  blue-eyed  and  red-haired." 
"If  oxen  or  lions  had  hands  or  could  draw  with  their 
hands  and  make  works  of  art  like  men,  horses  would 
draw  figures  of  gods  like  horses,  oxen  like  oxen,  giving 
them  bodies  like  the  form  which  they  themselves  pos- 
sessed." In  another  fragment  he  says,  "  Homer  and 
Hesiod  ascribed  to  the  gods  everything  disgraceful  and 
shameful  among  men,  theft,  adultery  and  deceit."  Over 
against  such  vulgar  notions  he  sets  his  own  idea  that 

301 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

"  There  is  one  God,  greatest  both  among  gods  and  men, 
resembling  mortals  neither  in  form  nor  in  thought."  Thus 
he  rejected  not  only  physical  but  mental  anthropomor- 
phism. This  God  "  without  effort  swings  the  universe  by 
the  purpose  of  his  mind,"  and  "  ever  abides  in  the  same 
place  nor  moves  at  all,"  for  he  is  "  all-seeing,  all-hearing, 
all  mind."  Thus  Xenophanes's  god  is  the  Universe  itself, 
endued  with  sense  and  design.  Heraclitus  is  contemptu- 
ous in  about  the  same  way,  denying  that  the  universe 
had  a  creator  or  a  beginning :  "  This  cosmic  order,  the 
same  for  all  beings,  no  god  nor  man  made,  but  it  always 
was  and  is  and  shall  be,  ever-living  fire,  blazing  up  and 
dying  down."  His  scorn  of  the  popular  notions  of  re- 
ligion is  seen  in  this  passage:  "  Men  pray  to  idols,  just 
as  if  one  were  to  converse  with  houses,  not  knowing  what 
is  the  nature  of  gods  and  houses."  He  called  the  Bac- 
chanalian devotees  "  night  roamers,  magians,  wild 
women,  mystse,"  and  pronounced  the  initiations  unholy. 
He  despised  all  the  poets  in  general  as  the  guides  of  the 
populace,  and  in  particular  Homer  and  Hesiod,  the  former 
of  whom  he  said  "ought  to  be  cast  out  of  the  arena 
and  scourged." 

Religion,  however,  had  not  parted  company  with  phi- 
losophy in  the  sixth  and  early  years  of  the  fifth  centuries 
B.C.,  for  speculation  as  yet  had  only  influenced  the  few. 
But  by  the  second  half  of  the  fifth  century  the  state  wor- 
ship had  to  notice  the  philosophical  protest,  for  this  was 
the  period  in  which  Anaxagoras,  Protagoras  and  Socrates 
(the  latter  in  399)  were  haled  into  the  courts.  By  the 
fourth  century  the  need  of  religion  was  more  real  than 
the  state  worship  could  satisfy,  and  so  a  strong  impulse 
was  given  to  philosophical  speculation.  From  Plato  on- 
wards philosophers  were  inspired  with  a  desire  to  explain 
the  world  religiously  as  well  as  metaphysically,  and  men 
turned  to  philosophy  for  religious  comfort.  It  is  interest- 
ing to  know  the  attitude  of  Plato,  the  greatest  of 

302 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

Greek  thinkers,  toward  the  contemporary  religion.  Plato 
was  no  revolutionary  iconoclast  of  the  popular  notions 
as  Xenophanes  and  Heraclitis  had  been  in  the  sixth  or 
Empedocles  in  the  fifth  century.  He  merely  believed  in 
reforming  the  Homeric  mythology,  purging  it  of  its  im- 
moral features — the  stories  of  the  conflict  of  wills  among 
the  gods,  their  vengeance,  jealousy  and  amours.  In  the 
Republic  (377-8,  Jowett)  he  blames  the  poets  for  these 
ignoble  elements  and  says  that  they  "  ought  not  to  be 
lightly  told  to  young  and  simple  persons;  if  possible, 
they  had  better  be  buried  in  silence/'  For  "  the  young 
man  should  not  be  told  that  in  committing  the  worst 
of  crimes  he  is  far  from  doing  anything  outrageous. 
.  .  .  and  in  this  will  only  be  following  the  example  of 
the  first  and  greatest  among  the  gods."  He  had  no  idea 
of  abolishing  idols  nor  sacrifices — though,  like  his  teacher 
Socrates,  he  inculcated  simple  offerings.  In  the  Epinomis 
he  says  the  legislator  will  not  change  a  single  detail  of  the 
ritual,  because  he  knows  nothing  of  the  inner  truth  back 
of  the  form.  Even  in  his  most  advanced  metaphysical 
speculations  he  leaves  a  place  for  the  popular  pantheon. 
His  last  work,  the  Laws,  reflects  strongly  the  popular  be- 
liefs and  a  sympathy  with  them.  Here  he  accepts  most 
of  the  religion  of  the  old  City-State,  only  purging  the 
myths  about  the  godhead.  In  the  Tim&us  he  ranges  the 
Olympians  below  the  supreme  transcendental  God  of  the 
universe.  Here,  in  the  scale  of  divine  creation,  they  are 
given  the  third  place,  after  the  Sun  and  Moon  and  Planets, 
which  are  the  second  works  of  the  Creator,  the  first  being 
Cosmic  Heaven.  They  are  not  altogether  immortal  nor 
indissoluble,  but  are  held  together  eternally  by  the  will  of 
the  highest  God.  To  them  was  given  the  labor  of  creat- 
ing man  by  weaving  mortal  and  immortal  together,  and 
God  gave  even  a  part  of  his  own  divinity  and  immortality 
for  this  purpose.  In  this  way  the  morality  of  mortals 
is  explained,  which  would  have  been  inexplicable  if  man 

303 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

had  sprung  directly  from  God.  Thus  we  see  Plato's 
esoteric  system  left  Olympianism  almost  unimpaired. 
The  old  system  was  enough  if  it  were  only  strengthened 
morally.  Later  schools,  which  went  by  his  name,  were 
more  interested  in  purely  religious  speculations  and  finally 
degenerated  into  the  mystic  superstition  of  Neo-Platonism. 
Plato,  then,  contributed  much  to  the  dissemination  in 
Greece  of  belief  in  God's  spiritual  nature,  and  much  to 
the  cleansing  of  the  old  Homeric  pantheon  of  its  cruder 
and  lower  elements. 

RELIGION   IN   THE  HELLENISTIC  AND   ROMAN  AGE 

In  conclusion  let  us  briefly  consider  the  state  of  re- 
ligion in  Greece  after  the  loss  of  independence  at  the 
hands  of  the  Macedonians,  during  the  so-called  Hellenistic 
and  Graeco-Roman  periods  down  to  the  time  of  St.  Paul 
and  the  earlier  Gnostics. 

With  the  establishment  of  the  Macedonian  empire 
and  the  conquests  of  Alexander  great  changes  were 
wrought  not  only  in  the  political  and  social  life  of 
Greece,  but  in  religion.  Some  of  these  changes  were 
in  the  direction  of  decay,  while  others  heralded  a  new 
life.  From  this  period  on  the  internal  development  of 
Hellenism  was  practically  at  an  end  and  its  further  his- 
tory was  concerned  only  with  external  changes.  The 
scene  now  shifts  from  the  Balkan  peninsula  to  an  im- 
perial world  stretching  from  Spain  to  India,  from  the 
sands  of  the  Sahara  to  the  steppes  of  Russia.  Its  centre 
is  no  longer  Athens,  but  in  succession  Alexandria,  Per- 
gamum,  Antioch.  It  is  not  very  difficult  to  understand 
why  the  Greek  language  followed  the  armies  of  Alex- 
ander and  finally  became  the  means  of  communication  in 
Egypt,  Syria  and  the  East.  It  is  more  difficult  to  under- 
stand how  Greek  culture  spread  everywhere — even  if  we 
do  not  feel  obliged  to  believe  the  statement  of  Plutarch 
that  Homer  was  commonly  read  in  Asia  and  that  "  the 

304 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

children  of  the  Persians,  of  the  inhabitants  of  Susa  and 
Gedrosia  played  the  tragedies  of  Euripides  and  Sophocles" 
and  that  the  "  inhabitants  of  India,  Bactria  and  the 
Caucasus  worshiped  Greek  gods."  The  explanation 
has  been  succinctly  given  in  these  words  of  the  historian 
Burckhardt :  "  Greek  culture  alone  had  the  capacity 
to  embrace  and  interpret  all  the  rest  of  the  world;  its 
spirit  made  a  universal  appeal  through  poetry,  art  and 
philosophy." 

Behind  all  the  changes  of  this  period  was  the  con- 
sciousness of  a  wide-spread  failure  of  Greek  ideals,  which 
changed  the  whole  viewpoint  of  men's  ideas  of  life  and  of 
the  soul.  First,  there  was  the  failure  of  the  City-State, 
which  was  crushed  by  Philip  and  later  by  the  military 
monarchies  set  up  by  Alexander's  successors.  The  decay 
of  local  patriotism  meant  the  decay  of  the  idea  of  patriot- 
ism as  a  Greek  ideal.  Cosmopolitanism  means  devotion 
to  no  state.  Consequently,  politics,  the  lode-stone  of  the 
older  Greeks,  no  longer  attracted  men  of  ability  or  char- 
acter. The  failure  of  the  City-State  also  caused  men  to 
lose  faith  in  government  in  general.  It  made  little  differ- 
ence how  opulent  the  kingdom  of  Egypt  might  be  or  how 
powerful  or  stable  the  empire  of  Rome  might  become; 
still  to  a  thoughtful  Greek  of  this  age,  with  memories  of 
the  old  independence  and  liberty,  life  seemed  hardly  worth 
living.  Even  the  propaganda  of  Hellenism,  instituted  by 
Alexander  with  the  idea  of  teaching  Greek  ideas  to  bar- 
barians, seemed  to  be  resulting  slowly  in  the  destruction 
of  the  ideas  it  tried  to  spread.  Worst  of  all,  with  the 
loss  of  the  City-State  the  influence  of  the  old  Olympian 
theology  waned,  for  the  two  were  bound  up  together. 
Even  before  Philip's  conquest  the  philosophical  assault 
on  the  ancient  system  had  slowly  gained  ground  and  had 
undermined  the  popular  faith  without  putting  an  adequate 
substitute  in  its  place.  Men  still  perfunctorily  observed 
the  outward  forms  of  religion  but  had  lost  faith  in  their 
20  305 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

efficacy.  With  unbelief  came  superstition,  and  comfort 
was  sought  in  foreign  cults. 

Amid  the  debris  of  ancient  ideals  the  Hellenistic  Greek 
looked  to  himself,  to  his  own  feelings  and  thoughts.  In- 
stead of  trying  to  live  justly,  as  Socrates  had  inculcated, 
and  to  help  his  fellow-men  by  the  example  of  a  pious  life, 
it  was  now  his  aim  to  seek  personal  holiness  and  salvation. 
Whereas  the  aim  of  the  old  religion  had  been  the  family, 
the  tribe  and  the  City,  the  aim  of  the  new  was  the  indi- 
vidual. The  old  Greek  had  gloried  in  good  works;  the 
later  gloried  in  his  personal  faith.  The  loss  of  political 
hope,  the  despair  of  hoping  to  arrive  at  truth  through 
patient  inquiry,  gave  birth  to  a  new  ideal — mysticism, 
asceticism,  selfish  individualism.  Consequently,  although 
the  new  age  was  one  of  enlightenment,  of  great  thinkers 
like  Zeno,  Cleanthes,  Chrysippus,  still  it  was  full  of 
morbidity  and  pessimism.  The  Greek  now  turned  to 
revelations  and  mysteries,  to  the  neglect  of  this  transitory 
life  in  the  hope  of  an  eternal  sinless  one  to  come.  The 
physical  and  political  wdrld  was  no  longer  the  interest  of 
religion ;  its  horizon  from  now  on  was  beyond  the  tomb. 

The  decay  of  Olympianism  was  very  gradual.  Though 
long  despised  by  educated  men,  it  did  not  lose  its  hold  on 
the  people  all  at  once.  Polytheism — the  belief  that  the 
world  was  mercifully  and  justly  governed  by  a  number 
of  gods — was  hard  to  get  rid  of  even  when  it  could  not 
withstand  criticism  and  when  it  no  longer  satisfied  the 
moral  yearnings  of  men.  Thus  for  some  time  yet  there 
were  no  deserted  temples  nor  any  decline  in  the  old  State 
festivals.  Olympianism  was  still  able  to  make  conquests 
even  in  the  fourth  century  B.C. — even  in  faraway  Car- 
thage. In  the  next  century  it  got  a  new  lease  of  life  in 
Rome,  where  its  last  chapter  was  to  be  written  centuries 
later  in  the  Imperial  Age.  In  these  later  centuries  mothers 
gave  to  their  babies  personal  names  which  show  they  still 
believed  in  the  old  gods — Apollodorus,  "the  gift  of 

306 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

Apollo,"  Hermodorus,  the  "  gift  of  Hermes,"  Apollonius, 
Athenaeus,  Dionysius  and  many  others.  Zeus,  Athena 
and  Apollo,  the  leaders  and  guardians  of  the  old  City- 
State,  were  the  first  of  the  deities  to  disappear  when  their 
citadels  fell.  But  Athena,  though  shorn  of  all  civic  and 
political  power,  was  destined  for  centuries  yet  to  be  the 
Madonna  of  Athens,  and  Zeus  was  still  to  enjoy  his  old 
religious  character.  Pausanias,  who  wrote  in  the  second 
century  of  our  era,  probably  reflects  the  religious  belief 
of  ordinary  men  of  his  day  when  he  says :  "  All  men 
agree  that  Zeus  reigns  in  heaven"  (ii,  24,  4).  The 
Mainotes  of  Laconia,  dwelling  on  the  rugged  slopes  of 
Taygetus,  still  worshiped  some  of  the  Olympians  five 
hundred  years  after  the  rest  of  the  Roman  Empire  had 
accepted  the  religion  of  Jesus,  finally  becoming  Christian- 
ized only  in  the  reign  of  Basil  towards  the  end  o-f  the  ninth 
century.  It  might  be  added  that  modern  Greek  folk-lore 
still  shows  indubitable  traces  of  the  old  polytheism,  such 
as  belief  in  Nereids,  Satyrs,  Dryads  and  even  the  Fates. 
IWhen  a  Greek  calls  the  thunder  "  starry  axe  "  or  says 
"  God  is  raining,"  he  is  still  unconsciously  believing  in 
the  powers  of  the  old  Sky-god  Zeus,  as  he  is  in  those  of 
Poseidon,  when  he  says,  as  on  the  island  of  Zante,  that 
earthquakes  are  caused  by  "  God  shaking  his  locks." 
Such  popular  ideas  have  little  in  common  with  those  of 
the  Christian  heaven;  for  it  is  as  joyless  and  gloomy 
a  realm  to  the  modern  peasant  as  it  was  to  the  men  of 
Homer's  day.  Coins  are  still  placed  in  the  mouths  of 
the  dead  in  Smyrna  and  parts  of  Macedonia.  Even 
Charon  himself  lives  on  as  Charos,  though  he  is  no  longer 
the  grim  ferryman,  but  the  black  angel  of  death  riding 
a  great  black  horse.  Similarly  many  of  the  modern  festi- 
vals are  the  direct  descendants  of  those  of  the  ancient 
Greeks. 

The  dominant  note,  then,  of  the  latter  centuries  of 
Hellenism  was  personal  religion.     As  the  older  cults 

307 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

slowly  lost  their  hold  and  a  craving  was  born  in  the 
individual  for  an  intimate  union  with  deity,  a  great  im- 
pulse was  given  to  the  old  mysteries.  Thus  in  the  fourth 
century  the  Eleusinia  were  extended,  those  of  Andania 
were  reorganized,  and  those  of  Megalopolis  were  insti- 
tuted. In  the  later  centuries  foreign  ones  were  added, 
as  those  of  Samothrace,  of  Attis,  of  Isis,  of  the  Great 
Mother,  and  finally  of  Mithra.  Some  of  their  ideas 
passed  over  into  Christianity,  such  as  the  saving  grace  of 
baptism,  the  communion  with  God  by  a  holy  sacrament, 
the  mystic  death  and  rebirth  of  the  neophyte.  Such  rites 
and  beliefs  satisfied  men's  yearning  for  immortality  or 
absorption  in  the  deity.  Sometimes,  as  in  the  mysteries 
of  Cybele  and  Sabazius,  the  sense  of  divinity  was  com- 
municated by  the  simulation  of  a  holy  marriage  or  sex 
communion  with  goddess  or  god.  Mainly  for  such  rea- 
sons all  these  mysteries  were  indiscriminately  condemned 
by  the  Church  Fathers. 

Apart  from  the  mysteries,  many  brotherhoods — thiasi 
— were  formed,  devoted  to  special  cults.  Secret  societies 
devoted  to  the  Olympian  gods  had  existed  in  Greece,  as 
we  have  seen,  from  early  times,  but  none  was  instituted 
for  the  service  of  alien  deities  till  the  very  end  of  the 
fifth  century.  In  the  Macedonian  period  we  have  many 
inscriptional  records  of  such  guilds.  They  show  the  de- 
velopment of  humanitarian  ideas  in  religion,  since  for- 
eigners were  fully  admitted,  whereas  in  the  older  mysteries 
only  Greeks  could  be  initiates.  Thus  it  was  no  longer 
blood  relationship  which  brought  men  together,  but  a  feel- 
ing of  fellowship  with  some  god.  Such  brotherhoods 
were  born  of  personal  religion,  and  also  quickened  its 
progress  and  became  models  for  the  early  Christian  so- 
cieties. They  bear  witness  to  the  fusion  of  ideas  between 
the  West  and  East,  of  which  Alexander  had  dreamed ;  for 
they  were  missionaries  in  the  movement  which  we  call 
thcocrasia — the  blending  of  the  religions  of  West  and 

308 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

East.  This  was  no  new  idea  of  the  Hellenistic  Age,  for 
Herodotus  shows  it  was  natural  in  the  fifth  century  to 
interpret  foreign  gods  in  terms  of  Greek,  and  Euripides 
had  actually  commended  Cybele  as  Demeter.  But  before 
Alexander's  day  it  was  dangerous  to  introduce  foreign 
cults  into  Greece.  Some  few  had  gotten  in  about  the  time 
of  the  fifth  century,  and  even  earlier  Aphrodite's  wor- 
ship at  Corinth  had  become  contaminated  with  the  im- 
pure ritual  of  an  Oriental  cult.  But  the  inevitable  was 
sure  to  come  and  Greece,  though  already  rich  in  gods, 
became  hospitable  to  the  gods  of  strangers,  ultimately 
receiving  them  from  Egypt,  Phoenicia,  Syria,  Assyria, 
Persia  and  Asia  Minor.  With  the  new  gods  alien  rituals 
came  and  they  were  open  to  Greeks  and  foreigners,  to 
women  and  slaves.  Before  the  fourth  century  had  passed 
Athens  became  alarmed  at  the  invasion.  Phryne,  the 
model  of  Praxiteles,  was  tried  on  a  charge  of  affiliating 
with  an  alien  cult.  But  the  legal  barriers  were  weak 
and  we  see  the  Phrygian  Sabazius  introduced  at  the  end 
of  the  fifth,  and  the  Syrian  Aphrodite,  the  Thracian 
Cotytto  and  others  in  the  fourth. 

These  new  worships  were  generally  mystic  and  con- 
sequently were  viewed  with  suspicion  and  generally  con- 
demned, though  without  reason,  as  immoral.  After 
.Alexander's  time  things  got  worse.  With  the  establish- 
ment of  the  kingdoms  of  his  successors,  the  old  gentile 
barriers  of  religion  broke  down  completely.  The  whole 
later  history  of  paganism  is  concerned  with  the  gradual 
influx  of  Eastern  ideas.  So  far  as  religion  was  concerned 
it  was  Asia  conquering  Greece,  for  Greece  was  far  more 
open  to  Oriental  influences  than  Asia  was  to  Hellenic. 
Some  of  these  princes  instituted  cults  for  both  Greeks 
and  Orientals.  Thus  Ptolemy,  for  political  reasons, 
founded  the  temple  of  the  god  Serapis,  who  had  been 
worshiped  for  centuries  at  Sinope,  and  who  was  trans- 
ported to  Alexandria  with  great  ceremony;  the  Syrian 

309 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

town  of  Bambyce  was  resettled  by  Seleucus  as  Hierapolis, 
the  "  sacred  city  " ;  the  personality  of  Atargatis,  a  Hittite 
goddess  worshiped  in  Carchemish  and  corresponding  to 
the  Canaanite  Ashtart,  became  blended  with  Aphrodite, 
Artemis  and  other  deities.  In  later  centuries  Egyptian, 
Syrian  and  Greek  gods  were  fused  together  by  the  same 
sacrifices  and  ritual  formulae.  The  name  Zeus  was  finally 
applied  to  so  many  Eastern  gods  that  it  quite  lost  its 
personal  meaning  and  simply  meant  "  God.'*  Varro,  the 
most  learned  of  the  Romans,  in  the  first  century  B.C.  said 
it  made  little  difference  what  name  was  used  if  the  same 
thing  was  thereby  understood.  He  looked  upon  Jahweh 
and  Jupiter  as  the  same  god.  Thus  the  theocrasia  resulted 
not  only  in  more  mysticism,  but  also  in  a  tendency  toward 
monotheism  and  helped  prepare  the  way  for  the  advent  of 
Christianity.  We  owe  this  great  idea  of  tolerance,  then, 
to  the  Greeks ;  it  was  an  idea  impossible  for  the  Hebrews 
to  attain.  The  process  of  fusion  was  completed  when 
finally  Christianity  entered  Greece  in  the  wake  of  these 
Eastern  creeds.  Theodosius  II  ordered  the  destruction 
of  all  temples,  like  that  of  the  Serapeum,  and  in  529  A.D. 
Justinian  closed  the  schools  of  Athens,  the  last  refuge  of 
Hellenic  thought. 

Another  characteristic  of  this  age  of  personal  re- 
ligion was  the  proclaiming  of  immortality.  The  initiate 
into  the  faith  of  Osiris,  of  Attis,  of  Mithra,  was  com- 
forted with  the  promise  of  a  happy  future.  But  the 
doctrine  of  immortality  taught  by  the  old  Orphic  sects 
was  the  most  popular  of  all.  Orphism  lasted  on  into 
the  first  century  A.D.  Its  success  was  due  partly  to  the 
fact  that  its  god  had  been  Hellenized  centuries  before, 
and  because  its  ritual  and  its  divine  names — Phanes, 
Zagreus,  etc. — had  long  been  familiar.  Furthermore,  its 
picture  of  the  hereafter  was  Greek  in  spirit. 

One  of  the  most  monstrous  beliefs  which  grew  to 
great  proportions  in  this  age  was  the  deification  of  men 

310 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

living  and  dead.  Germs  of  this  belief  are  found  in  the 
sixth  and  fifth  centuries,  when  heroic  honors  were  paid 
to  certain  great  men  after  death.  Though  the  idea  is 
foreign  to  Homer — for  even  Castor  and  Pollux  in  the 
Iliad  were  merely  the  mortal  brothers  of  Helen  and  had 
died  before  the  Trojan  expedition — it  may  go  back  to 
the  Mycenaean  Greeks,  as  attendance  at  the  tombs  of 
heroes  shows.5  The  first  example  of  it  which  we  have 
in  literature  is  the  apotheosis  of  Achilles  in  the  JEthiopis 
by  Arctinus  of  Miletus,  composed  at  the  close  of  the 
eighth  century  B.C.  The  first  historical  example  we  have 
of  a  living  man  receiving  worship  is  the  cult  of  the  Spar- 
tan general  Lysander  on  the  island  of  Samos  at  the  end 
of  the  fifth  century  B.C.,  mentioned  by  Plutarch.  The 
same  writer  also  says  that  the  Thasians  in  the  next  cen- 
tury wished  to  apotheosize  the  Spartan  King  Agesilaus, 
but  that  he  refused  the  honor.  Later  at  the  end  of  the 
fourth  century  the  Athenians  attributed  divinity  to  both 
Alexander  and  Demetrius  Poliorcetes.  It  was  easy  for  a 
people  accustomed  to  the  idea  of  man-gods  to  feel  such  a 
conception  realized  in  Alexander.  His  great  power,  bril- 
liant personality  and  incredible  conquests  put  men  into 
the  right  attitude  of  mind  to  worship  him.  Besides,  most 
of  the  kings  he  conquered  were  looked  upon  by  their 
subjects  as  gods,  and  it  was  therefore  felt  that  he  was 
no  man  but  a  greater  god  who  had  destroyed  them.  His 
successors  were  men  of  similar  power;  they  had  huge 
armies  and  wealth  and  could  accomplish  seemingly  im- 
possible things — rebuild  by  their  will  cities  which  had 
been  destroyed  by  war  or  earthquake,  allay  without  effort 
devastating  famines,  destroy  or  save  by  their  armies 
whole  provinces.  Thus  in  his  lifetime  Ptolemy  was  offi- 
cially called  Soter,  "Savior,"  or  Euergetes,  "benefactor" ; 

8  Homer,  II.  ii,  550  seq.,  knew  the  Attic  worship  of  Erechtheus. 
This,  however,  is  in  the  late  Catalogue  of  the  Ships. 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

Seleucus  was  called  Nicator,  "  Victor,"  and  Antiochus, 
Epiphanes,  the  "  God  Manifest."  When  we  read  that 
Aristotle,  the  soberest  of  philosophers,  erected  an  altar 
to  Plato,  we  have  a  different  phenomenon,  for  this  was 
no  superstitious  worship.  He  did  not  call  his  master  a 
god,  but  merely  recognized  the  divine  element  in  his  soul. 
It  is  a  great  mind  indeed  which  makes  its  divine  man 
out  of  such  material  as  Plato ;  it  is  a  far  commoner  sort 
which  makes  gods  o-ut  of  kings  and  conquerors. 

Eastern  polydsemonism  infected  the  mystic,  theosophi- 
cal  literature  of  these  later  centuries.  The  early  Greeks 
were  not  believers  in  good  and  evil  spirits,  but  we  find 
the  later  Greeks  using  exorcisms  and  conjurations  against 
them.  This  superstitition  has  been  inherited  by  the 
Greeks  of  to-day.  The  priests  of  the  Orthodox  Church 
still  exorcise  "  daemons  "  at  baptisms,  which  is  surely 
a  reminiscence  of  the  beliefs  of  the  Hellenistic  Age. 
We  must  also  not  neglect  to  mention  the  most  curious 
record  of  the  fusion  of  later  Hellenism  with  Oriental 
worship — the  so-called  Hermetic  literature,  which  Dr.  Far- 
nell  calls  the  "  most  fantastic  product  of  the  human 
mind."  It  pretends  to  go  back  to  Hermes  Trismegistus, 
the  Greek  name  of  the  Egyptian  god  Thoth,  the  reputed 
author  of  many  works  on  occult  science,  especially  al- 
chemy, theosophy  and  astrology.  These  were  lost  and 
other  books  by  Alexandrine  Neo-Platonists  appeared  in 
the  second  century  as  a  jumble  of  philosophical  and  theo- 
sophical  ideas.  The  philosophical  doctrine  of  this  litera- 
ture is  not,  however,  earlier  than  the  third  century  B.C., 
and  most  of  it  is  later.  The  need  of  a  mediator  between 
God  and  man  is  constantly  felt  in  these  rituals.  The 
formula,  "  I  am  Thou  and  Thou  art  I,"  is  the  key-note 
of  these  writings  and  their  spirit  is  an  unnatural  fusion 
of  Greek  philosophy  and  Oriental  theosophy  and  magic. 
It  had  some  influence  on  Christian  metaphysics.  Gilbert 

312 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

Murray  happily  sums  up  the  influence  of  this  fantastic 
superstition  on  Greece  by  saying  that  "  Astrology  fell 
on  the  Hellenic  mind  as  a  new  disease  falls  upon  some 
remote  island  people."  6 

THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  REFINEMENT  OF  RELIGION 

In  concluding  this  summary  sketch  of  the  religious 
ideas  of  later  Hellenism,  it  will  be  interesting  very  briefly 
to  notice  what  substitutes  philosophy  gave  after  the 
downfall  of  Olympianism.  Aristotle  guides  us  in  our 
inquiry  by  stating  that  the  origin  of  human  knowledge 
of  the  divine  is  two- fold — the  phenomena  of  the  sky 
and  the  phenomena  of  the  soul.  Since  it  was  felt  that 
there  must  be  a  mind  behind  the  regular  motions  of  the 
heavenly  body,  it  was  easy  to  regard  the  sun  and  moon 
as  divine.  This  step  had  already  been  taken  by  Pythag- 
oras, Plato  and  Aristotle.  If  these  are  divine,  then  the 
Earth  and  the  planets  and  stars  as  well  as  the  elements, 
Water,  Air,  and  especially  Fire — for  Plato  affirmed  that 
the  gods  were  made  of  Fire — must  also  be  divine.  Most 
of  the  Hellenistic  thinkers,  then,  like  Chrysippus,  regarded 
the  "  Sun  and  Moon  and  Stars  "  as  divine,  conceiving 
them  as  "  animate,  divine  and  eternal  beings,"  i.e.,  as 
gods.  As  to  the  phenomena  of  the  soul,  the  speculations 
of  philosophers  after  Plato,  with  a  few  notable  exceptions 
like  the  Roman  Stoics,  tended  away  from  the  outer  world 
to  the  inner  world  of  the  soul.  The  Stoics  made  the  soul 
a  part  of  the  divine  life  and  taught  that  the  savior  of 
mankind  was  not  the  earthly  prince,  but  he  who  saved 
men's  souls.  For  he  revealed  to  mortals  the  knowledge 
of  God — a  knowledge  which  was  not  merely  intellectual 
in  nature,  but  a  complete  union.  And  the  method  used  by 

6  Four  Stages  of  Greek  Religion,  p.  125.  I  am  greatly  indebted 
to  his  third  chapter,  "  The  Failure  of  Nerve,"  in  my  treatment  of 
the  Hellenistic  Age,  as  well  as  for  the  article  by  Farnell  in  Hast- 
ings' Dictionary. 

313 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

all  Hellenistic  and  later  thinking  in  their  efforts  to  make 
the  people  understand  this  knowledge  can  be  summed  up, 
as  Gilbert  Murray  says,  in  the  one  word  Allegory.  From 
the  earlier  Stoics  onward  they  all  apply  this  method  to 
everything — to  Homer,  to  religious  traditions,  to  rituals 
and  to  the  world.  Thus,  at  the  beginning  of  the  period, 
Cleanthes  looked  upon  the  universe  as  a  great  mystic 
pageant  in  which  the  divine  Stars  were  the  dancers  and 
the  Sun  the  torch-bearing  priest.  His  pupil,  Chrysippus, 
reduced  Homer's  Olympians  to  physical  and  ethical  prin- 
ciples. Finally  Sallustius,  the  contemporary  of  the  em- 
peror Julian  in  the  fourth  century  of  our  era,  came  to 
look  upon  the  whole  world  of  matter  as  a  great  myth. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

GENERAL  WORKS  :  L.  R.  Farnell :  Cults  of  the  Greek  States,  5  vols., 
1896-1908  (the  best  study  of  the  gods)  ;  id.  article  Greek  Re- 
ligion, in  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  Religion  and  Ethics,  vol.  6, 
392-425;  id.  article  in  Encycl.  Brit.,  nth  ed.,  12:  527-30;  A.  Fair- 
banks :  Handbook  of  Greek  Religion,  1910 ;  J.  Harrison :  Re- 
ligion of  Ancient  Greece  (primer),  1905;  Sir  Gilbert  Murray: 
Four  Stages  of  Greek  Religion,  1912 ;  G.  F.  Moore :  History 
of  Religions,  I  (1913),  406  ff;  L.  F.  A.  Maury:  Histoire  des 
religions  de  la  Grece  Antique,  3  vols.,  1857-59  (the  most  readable 
history);  E.  Meyer:  Geschichte  des  Altertums,  II,  1893-1902 
(the  best  historical  account,  treating  the  subject  in  relation  to  the 
political,  social  and  economic  development  of  the  Greeks)  ;  P.  D. 
Chantepie  de  la  Saussaye :  Lehrbuch  der  Religionsgeschichte,  3d 
ed.,  1906  (Greek  Section). 

EARLY  PERIOD  :  D.  G.  Hogarth :  art.  "^gean  Religion,"  in  Hastings' 
Dictionary  of  Religion  and  Ethics  (1908),  I,  141  seq.;  H.  R. 
Hall :  JEgean  Archeology,  1915 ;  A.  Evans :  Mycenatan  Tree 
and  Pillar  Cult,  1901 ;  T.  D.  Seymour :  Life  in  the  Homeric  Age, 
1908,  ch.  xiv;  De  Visser:  Die  nicht  menschengestaltigen  Gutter 
der  Griechen,  1903. 

ESCHATOLOGY  AND  MYSTERIES  :  Farnell :  Cults,  3  :  127-213,  343-367;  id. 
art.  "Mystery,"  Encycl.  Brit.,  19:  117-123;  J.  Harrison:  Prole- 
gomena to  the  Study  of  Greek  Religion,  2d  ed.,  1908  (Orphic 
formulae);  Goblet  d'Alviella;  Eleusinia,  1903;  P.  Foucart:  Les 
Grands  Mysteres  d'Eleusis,  1900;  id.  Les  associations  religieuscs 
chez  les  Grecs,  1873;  E.  Rohde:  Psyche,  6th  ed.,  1903;  A. 
Dietrich:  Nekyia,  1893;  H.  K.  E.  de  Jong:  Das  antike  Mys- 
terienwesen,  1909;  L.  Weniger:  Ober  das  Collegium  der 
Thyiaden,  1876. 

DIVINATION  :  W.  R.  Halliday :  Greek  Divination,  1912 ;  A.  Bouche 
Leclercq:  Histoire  de  la  Divination,  4  vols.,  1870-81. 

314 


THE  RELIGION  OF  GREECE 

SPECULATION:  L.  Campbell:  Religion  in  Greek  Literature,  1898;  J. 
Adam:  Religious  Thinkers  of  Greece,  1908;  E.  Caird:  Evolu- 
tion of  Theology  in  the  Greek  Philosophers,  2  vols.,  1904;  T. 
Gomperz:  The  Greek  Thinkers,  1912;  P.  Decharme:  La 
Critique  des  traditions  religeuses  chez  les  Grecs,  1904;  J. 
Girard:  Le  Sentiment  religieux  en  Grece,  1879;  B.  Zeller:  Die 
Philosophic  der  Griechen,  5  vols. 

WORSHIP  AND  MONUMENTS:  W.  H.  D.  Rouse:  Greek  Votive  Offer- 
ings, 1902;  E.  Reisch:  Griech.  Weihgeschencke,  1890;  P.  Sten- 
S:l:  Die  griech.  Kultusaltertiim-er,  2d  ed.,  1898;  J.  Overbeck: 
riech.  Kunstmythologie,  1871-87. 

FESTIVALS:  A.  Mommsen :  Feste  der  Stadt  Athen  im  Altertum,  1898; 
M.  P.  Nilsson :  Griechische  Feste,  1906. 

INFLUENCE  ON  CHRISTIANITY:  E.  Hatch:  The  Influence  of  Greek 
Ideas  and  Usages  Upon  the  Christian  Church,  1890. 

In  writing  the  above  chapter  I  wish  particularly  to  express  my 
indebtedness  to  the  works  of  Fairbanks,  J.  Harrison  (especially 
the  primer),  Hogarth,  Hall,  Murray,  Farnell  (especially  the  art.  in 
Hastings'  Dictionary),  and  articles  in  the  Encycl.  Brit. 


315 


CHAPTER  XI 

RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS 
BY  GEORGE  DEPUE  HADZSITS 

THE  history  of  the  religious  experiences  of  the  Roman 
people  falls  quite  naturally  into  four  epochs  which  we 
can  distinguish  temporally  and  temperamentally : 

(1)  The  long  period,  indefinite  in  time,  antecedent 
to  the  foundation  o-f  Rome,  when  the  ancestors  of  the 
Romans  were  migrating  from  the  Danube  Valley  and 
the  Northland  of  Italy  and  were  occupying  the  plains  of 
Latium  to  which  they  were  led  not  by  any  divine  guid- 
ance but  by  instinct,  by  the  laws  of  Nature  and  of  eco- 
nomic necessity.     The  mists  of  this  pre-historic  period 
have  lifted,  and,  thanks  to  the  science  of  the  archaeologist, 
the  anthropologist  and  the  philologist  we  can  discern  with 
amazing  clarity  the  main  outlines  of  the  civilization  of 
a  people  living  in  the  iron  and  bronze  ages;  a  belief  in 
magic,  a  worship  of  objects  and  of  spirits  controlled  the 
consciousness  and  the  conscience  of  a  primitive  people 
who  in  large  measure  handed  on  their  own  primitive 
dreads  to  their  descendants,  the  Romans. 

(2)  The  regal  period  of  Rome,  falling  traditionally 
between  754  and  509  B.C.,  within  which  there  were  two 
moments   of   special    consequence  to    the    evolution   of 
Roman  religion,  the  first  of  which  we  associate  with  the 
name  of  the  pious  King  Numa  and  the  second  of  which 
was  determined  by  an  Etruscan  conquest  of  Rome.   The 
Romans  always  held  the  name  of  Numa  in  particular 
reverence.     They  had  already  passed  from  the  animistic 
stage  to  that  of  theism  and,  as  far  as  it  has  ever  been 
given  by  Providence  to  any  one  man  to  formulate  the 
religious  habits  of  a  people  so  that  these  remained — » 

316 


RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS 

surveyed  in  the  large — for  centuries  in  the  mold  in  which 
he  had  cast  them,  such  was  the  opportunity,  or  the  mis- 
sion, as  you  will,  of  the  statesman  who  brought  out  of 
the  chaos  of  earlier  beliefs  and  practices  the  cosmic  order 
of  a  state  religion.  The  Etruscan  influence  confirmed 
the  earlier,  inherent  tendency  toward  organization  of 
ritual  but  the  building  of  the  Etruscan  temple  to  Jupiter 
on  the  Capitoline  hill  with  a  statue  of  that  God  repre- 
sented the  imposition  of  a  new  idea  upon  Roman  religious 
beliefs,  of  epochal  importance  in  its  consequences.  This 
imposing  temple,  reared  on  the  Capitoline  and  proudly 
surveying  the  future  growth  of  the  whole  city,  became 
and  remained  the  centre  of  religious  aspirations  through- 
out the  500  years  of  the  Republic;  it  became  the  symbol 
of  republican  Rome  and  to  our  imagination  looms  as 
large  as  the  Parthenon  in  Athens  or  the  Temple  at 
Jerusalem.  By  the  close  of  the  sixth  century  B.C.,  the 
genuine  Roman  religion,  the  pure  religious  expression 
of  the  native  stock,  had  almost  attained  the  limit  of 
its  growth  which  in  itself  was  an  augury  of  impending, 
momentous  changes. 

(3)  In  the  long  stretch  of  300  years,  following  500 
B.C.,  from  500  to  200  B.C.,  there  came  into  Roman  life 
a  series  of  national  crises  with  which  the  old  religion  was 
not  able  to  cope ;  in  moments  of  intense  emotional  strain 
the  cry  went  forth  for  the  help  of  foreign  gods  and  from 
Greece  Rome  learned  to  worship  gods  in  human  form, 
with  human  virtues  and  human  frailties.  The  resultant 
humanization  of  the  Roman  gods  stripped  them  of  their 
mystery  which  had  been  the  essence  and  the  secret  of  their 
power.  Far  from  enriching  an  earlier  barren  concept  of 
deus,  plastic  and  sensuous  representations  and  mythologies 
of  gods  merely  placed  them  in  a  clearer  air  without  in- 
creasing their  distinction.  The  old  machinery  of  wor- 
ship did  not  break  under  the  strain  though  admitting 
of  some  modifications,  and  religiosity  was  still  deter- 

317 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

mined  by  faithful  observance  of  established  ritual.  The 
adoption  of  the  sensational  cult  of  Magna  Mater  from 
Asia  Minor — near  the  close  of  this  period — was  fraught 
with  gravest  peril  to  the  religion  of  the  Roman  state 
which  with  the  year  200  B.C.  (approximately)  entered 
upon  the  last  stage  of  its  evolution. 

(4)  The  deep-seated  religious  distrust  and  discontent, 
implied  in  the  establishment  of  the  Great  Mother's  wor- 
ship upon  the  Palatine,  the  very  cradle  of  Roman  life, 
bore  abundant  fruit  in  the  next  150  years,  when  politics 
corrupted  religious   institutions  and   philosophies  men- 
aced the  very  existence  of  all  orthodox  faith  by  their 
contradictory,  rival  definitions  of  that  Unknown  Power, 
outside,  which  man  calls  God.    Civil  wars,  besides,  shook 
men's  faith  in  man  and  in  government  and  the  cataclysm 
threatened  to  engulf  the  gods  who  had  carried  Rome 
through  earlier  tragic  experiences.     There  appear  upon 
the  horizon  the  faces  of  strange  gods  from  the  Orient 
who  seemed  to  satisfy  a  personal  craving  and  an  indi- 
vidual yearning  for  a  closer  touch  with  God. 

(5)  But  when  Rome  emerged  triumphant  from  her 
bloody  trial,  there  followed  a  reaction  in  favor  of  the  old 
gods,  and  the  will  and  the  skill  of  Augustus  easily  directed 
a  revival  of  such  depth  and  magnitude  as  almost  to  be  with- 
out a  parallel  in  history.  Underneath  the  turbulent  waters 
of  politics  and  philosophy  there  had  flowed  a  deeper  current 
of  religious  trust  which  had,  almost  insensibly,  brought 
about  an  adjustment  between  the  Greek  and  the  Roman 
religions  so  that  a  fusion  of  these  arose  in  the  "  Graeco- 
Roman  orthodoxy  "  of  the  close  of  the  first  century  B.C. 
and  of  the  imperial  period.    There  still  remained  a  sub- 
stratum of  genuine  Roman  beliefs  and  Numa's  genius 
still  presided  over  Rome  in  a  continuation  of  ceremonies 
and  of  forms  of  worship  as  old  as  Rome  herself.    Even 
with  new  ceremonies  and  with  the  organization  of  the 
Emperor  worship,  the  idea  of  formalism  remained  para- 

318 


RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS 

mount  in  the  state  religion.  The  way  to  salvation  for 
the  primitive  Italian,  to  whom  the  good  will  of  the  gods 
was  a  burning  question,  seemed  to  lie  along  the  road  of 
ritual,  and  likewise  it  was  through  cult  that  the  imperial 
Roman  thought  to  save  his  soul.  The  extraordinary 
hold  of  Roman  religion,  extending  over  a  space  of  1000 
years  and  more,  rests  as  much  upon  the  Roman's  practical 
nature  and  his  essential  lack  of  imagination  as  upon  his 
respect  for  state  authority  and  tradition.  Through  king- 
ship, through  republic  and  through  empire  the  religion 
of  the  state  survived,  never  democratic  in  any  real  sense, 
never  spiritual  in  any  deep  sense.  Constantine  beheld 
the  sign  of  the  cross  in  the  skies  and  in  325  A.D.  the  Nicene 
creed  was  adopted,  but  it  was  not  till  394  A.D.  that  Theo- 
dosius  closed  the  doors  of  the  ancient  and  venerable  temple 
of  Vesta,  and  forbade  the  worship  of  the  Lares  and  the 
Penates.  Some  festivals  survived  for  another  100  years 
and  others  have  remained  with  change  of  content  to  the 
present  time.  In  its  formalism,  Catholicism  has  inherited 
Rome's  greatest  legacy  to  religious  history. 

As  we  pause  for  a  moment  on  the  threshold  of 
Roman  religion,  we  become  aware  of  the  existence  there 
of  a  belief  in  magic,  a  worship  of  objects,  and  of  spirits, — 
a  triple  inheritance  from  past  ages  which  a  tenacious, 
religious  conservatism  of  the  following  centuries  never 
completely  disowned  throughout  the  political,  social  and 
intellectual  development  cf  the  Roman  people.  Many 
survivals  of  a  primitive  age  persisted,  some  with  force, 
some  archaic  and  the  targets  of  fault-finding  arrows,  some 
remaining  to  the  eternal  enslavement  o-f  Roman  freedom 
and  the  Roman  religious  nature.  Sympathetic  magic 
was  at  the  very  root  of  Roman  religion  and  to  the  latest 
days  to  the  minds  of  the  superstitious  at  the  festival  of 
the  Carmentalia  the  spells  of  the  wise  women,  the  Car- 
mentes,  assisted  at  child-birth,  while  at  the  Fordicidia 

319 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

the  sacrifice  of  pregnant  cows  in  the  middle  of  April 
aided  the  sprouting  seed.  To  be  sure  a  Cynic  of  the  age 
of  Nero  laughed  at  the  folly  of  the  antiquated  institution 
of  the  Aqualicium,  but  the  pontiffs  solemnly  carried  the 
sacred  stone  to  the  Capitoline  and  prayed  to  Jupiter  for 
rain  until  the  people  were  drenched  like  rats  by  the 
responsive  rain  that  fell  in  bucketfuls.  The  influence 
of  the  early  magician  must  have  been  almost  boundless 
as  we  learn  from  J.  G.  Frazer,  and  the  perversity  of 
human  nature  not  to  recognize  the  proper  relation  between 
cause  and  effect  gave  even  in  historic  times  power  to  the 
Luperci  whose  magic  strips  of  goat-skin  lashed  the  un- 
offending backs  of  hopeful  women  who  placed  themselves 
in  the  way  of  priests  celebrating  holiday  in  February. 
The  fascination  of  magic  runs  through  the  miraculous 
tale  that  is  told  of  the  acquisition  by  the  Romans  of  a 
shield  from  the  sky  which  was  to  be  a  pledge  of  Rome's 
empire.  Faunus  and  Picus  were  dwellers  in  a  grove  at 
the  foot  of  the  Aventine  hill  and  by  their  incantations 
brought  Jupiter  down  from  his  habitation  above ;  Jupiter 
promised  Numa  a  pledge  of  empire  and  on  the  following 
day  in  the  presence  of  a  startled  people  the  God  thrice 
thundered  without  a  cloud,  thrice  darted  his  lightnings 
and — behold!  a  shield,  gently  poised  on  the  breeze,  fell 
at  their  feet.  To  the  magician,  prayer  and  propitiation 
were  unknown,  but  the  countless  moods  of  the  primitive 
Italian  responded  variously  to  his  mysterious  environ- 
ment ;  failure  of  magic  gave  birth  to  a  degree  of  humility 
and  reverence  in  the  presence  of  dissociate  and  uncon- 
trollable phenomena  of  lightning,  thunder,  clouds,  moan- 
ing winds,  earthquakes,  volcanic  disturbances,  floods  and 
echoes. 

The  majesty  of  the  primeval  forest  inspired  a  venera- 
tion that  lived  in  the  worship  of  the  sacred  fig  tree  of  the 
Palatine  and  the  sacred  oak  of  Jupiter  Feretrius  on  the 
Capitoline.  It  was  near  an  ancient  cypress  tree  that  had 

320 


RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS 

been  guarded  through  many  years  by  the  religious  awe 
of  his  fathers  that  -^Eneas  appointed  a  meeting  place  for 
his  refugees  from  burning  Troy.  The  worship  of  bound- 
ary stones,  too,  was  never  lost  even  in  the  later  fully 
developed  cult  of  the  god  Terminus  whose  symbol- 
marking  the  point  at  which  the  properties  of  two  or 
three  owners  converged — was  holy  in  the  eyes  of  the  coun- 
try people  who  had  buried  fruits  of  the  earth,  bones, 
ashes  and  blood  of  a  victim  where  the  symbol  was  firmly 
fixed  in  the  ground.  That  worship  of  animals  also  ex- 
isted among  the  primitive  Latins  is  the  belief  of  Reinach, 
although  Wissowa  is  equally  emphatic  that  such  was  not 
the  case.  The  cult  of  other  natural  objects  doubtless 
played  a  more  prominent  part  in  Roman  religion  than  the 
worship  of  animals,  but  all  the  circumstances  of  the 
Latin  Festival  strongly  suggest  that  in  that  ancient  cere- 
mony on  the  Alban  mountain  we  have — continued  from 
primitive  times  to  the  third  century  A.D. — a  common 
meal  of  a  sacred  victim,  a  sacrament,  a  communion  on 
the  part  of  the  deputies  with  the  god,  the  victim  and  each 
other.  The  peculiarly  solemn  nature  of  this  ceremony 
on  the  hills  that  dominate  the  whole  Latin  plain  carries 
us  back  to  the  ancient  days  when  cattle  were  sacred 
animals,  when  a  pastoral  people  were  groping  about  for 
objects  upon  which  to  fasten  a  sentiment,  profounder  than 
any  secular  feeling,  until  they  could  conceive  the  idea  of 
a  spirit  haunting  objects  and  could  transfer  the  emotion 
of  awe  and  reverence  to  the  spirit  of  the  thing. 

Lucretius  was  well  aware  that  there  was  a  stage  in  the 
evolution  of  Roman  religion  when  a  life,  analogous  to 
human  life — inspired  by  a  fearful  contemplation  of  in- 
comprehensible phenomena  and  confirmed  by  the  mysteries 
of  dreams — was  attributed  to  aspects  of  Nature.  The 
primitive  Latin  came  to  feel  that  his  whole  world  was 
filled  with  vague,  ill-defined  spirits  or  Powers,  invisible 
and  intangible,  more  potent  in  the  Universe  than  himself 
21  321 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

or  his  magic.  It  was  a  fantastic  world  in  which  he  lived, 
a  world  through  which  these  spirits  or  hob-goblins  danced 
and  with  whom  he  must  needs  make  his  peace.  These 
forces  were  the  products  of  an  animistic  stage  and  the 
significant  term  of  numina  defined  the  Will  that  was 
theirs.  Numina  lived  in  the  trees,  in  the  springs,  in  the 
fields,  at  the  hearth,  in  the  cupboard,  at  the  threshold; 
they  were  associated  with  women  and  child-birth,  with 
men  and  procreation,  with  the  crops,  with  the  woodland, 
with  the  cattle  and  the  fruits,  with  the  earth  and  the 
boundaries  of  the  fields.  This  polydsemonism  was  a  poly- 
theism in  germ,  the  natural  product  of  a  manifold  world 
that  was  pluralistic  in  its  variety  and  suggestiveness.  In 
this  entanglement  of  the  real  and  the  visionary,  fear  was 
a  constant  element,  the  real  spring  as  Petronius  thought 
of  Roman  religious  feeling.  Virgil  caught  the  dramatic 
spirit  of  this  situation  which  he  represented  as  follows : 

E'en  then  rude  hinds  the  spot  revered; 
E'en  then  the  wood,  the  rock  they  feared. 
Here  in  this  grove,  these  wooded  steeps, 
Some  god  unknown  his  mansion  keeps. 

The  first  theology  of  the  ancestors  of  the  Romans  con- 
sisted in  his  knowledge  of  these  numina  and  their  dwell- 
ing places,  and  his  ritual  was  determined  by  a  need  of 
propitiation  and  expiation  through  the  performance  of 
proper  rites  and  sacrifices  upon  the  fields  and  in  the  home. 
There  must  have  been  constant  fear  of  trespassing  upon 
forbidden  territory,  of  offending  or  of  alienating,  and  of 
suffering  from  wrongs  committed  wittingly  or  unwit- 
tingly. The  whole  future  history  of  Roman  ritual  is  an 
eloquent  monument  to  the  ancient,  deep  emotional  dis- 
turbance upon  which  the  Roman  religion  rests.  Many 
numina  survived  to  a  later  age,  quite  as  vague  and  in- 
definite as  they  were  at  the  beginning;  so,  too,  that  orig- 
inal impelling  and  compelling  fear  manifested  itself  re- 
peatedly in  the  most  startling  ways,  constantly  revealed 

322 


RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS 

in  the  pages  of  Livy's  descriptions  of  innumerable  prodi- 
gies and  expiations.  Furrina,  a  goddess  of  the  state 
pantheon,  who  had  a  priest  of  her  own  and  a  special 
festival  in  her  honor,  remained  to  the  end  a  vague  numen, 
whose  nature  and  functions  in  Cicero's  day  were  a  pure 
matter  of  conjecture.  We  read  of  a  ceremony  connected 
with  the  worship  of  the  household  in  historic  times  that 
well  reflects  the  early  anxiety  and  scruple  that  filled  the 
life  of  the  primitive  Latin  in  the  midst  of  the  wild  forests 
and  in  the  presence  of  imposing  mountains.  Following 
the  birth  of  a  child  three  gods  were  thought  of  as  guard- 
ing the  home  against  the  intrusion  by  night  of  the  half- 
wild  deity,  Silvanus ;  three  men  took  their  places  as  guards 
at  the  threshold  and  with  the  symbols  of  the  three  pro- 
tecting divinities  the  one  hews  at  the  threshold  with  his 
axe,  the  second  pounds  with  his  pestle,  and  the  third 
sweeps  with  his  branches  or  twigs  that  serve  as  a  broom — 
all  intended  to  keep  away  the  malevolent  numen,  Silvanus, 
who  never  in  the  later  history  of  Roman  religion  passed 
into  the  higher  rank  of  a  real  god.  The  guardian  deities, 
Intercidona,  Pilumnus  and  Deverra,  likewise  remained 
shadowy  numina  such  as  originally  had  filled  the  life  of 
the  primitive  settler  before  he  had  even  invented  names 
for  these  spirits,  before  he  had  lifted  himself  out  of  a 
life  of  extreme  superstition  and  uncertainty  into  a  clearer 
knowledge  of  gods  and  a  clearer  conception  of  his  proper 
relations  with  those  gods.  But  gradually  through  a  deeper 
consciousness  and  a  riper  experience  gods  were  evolved 
out  of  the  numina,  the  regular  succession  of  the  seasons 
inspired  festivals,  the  worship  upon  the  fields  and  in  the 
home  was  highly  developed,  and  all  of  these  elements  were 
essential  material  ready  at  hand  to  serve  as  the  basis  for 
Rome's  State  worship. 

Numa  might  be  said  to  have  given  Rome  her  "  re- 
ligious charter,"  so  deep  and  profound  upon  the  whole 
subsequent  religious  history  of  the  city  was  the  influence 

323 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

of  this  organization  of  beliefs  and  practices  on  behalf 
of  the  State  which  we  associate  with  the  name  of  the 
second  traditional  king  whose  rule,  following  the  chron- 
ology of  Livy,  fell  within  the  years  of  717-674  B.C.  Rome 
had  her  gods,  the  gods  of  the  fathers  and  ancestors  of 
the  Romans,  who  had  all  the  sanction  of  an  ancient, 
hereditary  belief.  Rome's  gods,  whether  they  became 
such  at  the  time  of  Numa  or  before,  represented  a  selec- 
tion from  the  larger  number  of  gods  worshiped  upon 
the  fields  and  in  the  home;  these  gods  of  the  State  were 
called  her  di  indigctes,  or  native  divinities,  and  although 
the  number  of  gods  whose  cults  were  adopted  by  the  City- 
State  during  the  centuries  that  followed,  was  great,  yet 
the  circle  of  original  deities  remained  for  over  500  years 
a  closed  circle,  held  in  peculiar  veneration.  Although  a 
matter  of  gradual  growth,  the  final  elaborate  organization 
of  state  priesthoods,  the  incorporation  into  the  body  of 
state-ritual  of  earlier  field  and  home  cults  and  ceremonials 
for  the  divine  protection  of  the  corporate  life  of  the  com- 
munity was  due — as  all  Roman  tradition  had  it — to  the 
master  mind  of  a  great  statesman.  Neither  seer  nor 
prophet,  but  a  practical  Roman,  he  laid  the  permanent 
foundations  for  the  Roman  state's  Jus  Divinum,  that 
highly  organized  legal  code  defining  all  the  relations  be- 
tween man  and  his  gods.  The  inherent  Roman  genius  for 
order  and  discipline  is  no  less  apparent  in  all  of  this  than 
a  fundamental  concept  of  reasonableness. 

The  gods  of  the  Roman  people,  the  gods  of  the  City- 
State,  reflect  very  clearly  the  great,  vital  interests  of  a 
pastoral  and  agricultural  community  which  was  concerned 
for  the  welfare  of  its  cattle,  the  success  of  its  crops,  and 
the  safety  of  its  homes.  The  practical  daily  life,  the 
struggle  for  existence,  the  strife  with  rival  neighboring 
settlements  are  eloquently  recorded  in  the  names  of  divini- 
ties who  had  been  closely  identified  with  definite  areas 
and  who  had  presided  over  the  life  of  their  worshipers  in 

324 


RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS 

its  totality.  As  gods  of  the  state,  they  became  the  pro- 
tectors and  guarantors  of  that  new  experiment  in  civic  life 
upon  the  banks  of  the  Tiber,  destined  to  such  an  ex- 
traordinary career.  At  a  later  time  the  credit  for  that 
miracle  of  growth  and  success  was  given  to  the  gods  by 
an  unquestioning  people  whose  firm,  deep  faith  finds  ex- 
pression in  the  eloquent  preface  of  one  of  Rome's  greatest 
historians;  if  it  be  allowed  any  people  to  consecrate  its 
origins  and  to  refer  to  the  gods  as  their  authors,  the 
Roman  people  are  entitled  to  such  a  glorification  of  their 
success  in  war. 

Representing  a  stage  of  evolution  from  the  earlier 
numina  of  pre-history,  these  gods  were  not  as  yet  definitely 
anthropomorphic,  but  as  mysterious  gods  they  exercised 
unlimited  power  within  definite  domains.  There  was 
among  these  departmental  gods  a  clear  and  sharp  differ- 
entiation and  specialization  of  duties  and  functions,  for 
the  ripening  grain,  the  harvest,  the  woodland  and  the 
forest,  the  flowers,  the  springs  and  rivers,  the  pastures, 
the  mildew,  the  seed  in  the  ground,  the  earth,  the  bound- 
aries of  the  field,  fire,  birth  and  death,  the  door-way  and 
the  hearth  were  among  the  spheres  within  which  these 
divinities  exercised  their  influence.  Three  gods,  how- 
ever, loomed  large  and  in  Jupiter,  Mars  and  Quirinus  we 
recognize  a  superior  and  dominating  quality  that  dis- 
tinguished them  above  all  the  rest.  Jupiter,  the  great  sky- 
god  of  light,  of  rain  and  of  sunshine,  whose  favor  was 
so  essential  for  the  fields  and  for  the  vineyards,  who 
gave  dramatic  signs  of  approval  or  of  disapproval  through 
the  thunder  and  the  lightnings,  was  the  one  god  far  re- 
moved from  the  immediate  environment  of  man  which  had 
given  birth  to  his  numerous  other  divinities.  When  the 
gods  of  the  fields  and  of  the  home  became  state  divinities, 
as  state  gods  they  assumed  the  responsibility  for  the  com- 
mon welfare  of  all  whose  life  was  dependent  upon  the 
products  of  field  and  stream  and  who  resided  within  the 

325 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

City-home  within  which  they  themselves  had  metaphori- 
cally taken  up  their  own  residence. 

Characterized  chiefly  by  a  Power  which  it  was  natural 
for  the  Romans  to  deify,  these  gods,  "  impersonal  indi- 
vidualities," knew  no  plastic  representations.  The  Roman 
showed  little  imagination  about  his  gods,  and  he  was  as 
slightly  concerned  with  their  personality  as  he  was  with 
attachment  of  ethical  qualities  to  them.  Though  nature- 
gods,  there  was  no  personification  in  any  real  sense  of 
nature  and  her  forces  that  we  find  here.  The  epithet  of 
pater  betrays  no  real  sense  of  the  fatherhood  of  god  nor 
was  there  any  revelation  of  human  relationships  between 
the  gods.  No  fairy  tales  or  mythologies  sprang  into 
existence  as  the  expression  of  a  speculative  tendency,  nor 
psalms  and  hymns  as  the  lyrical  outburst  of  religious 
emotion.  There  were  no  further  creeds  or  dogmas  except 
such  as  defined  the  provenance  of  these  functional  deities. 
Eminently  practical,  these  gods  were  not  the  product  of 
soaring  phantasies  about  the  stars,  the  sun  and  the  moon, 
the  storm,  the  ocean-roar  or  forest  darkness;  it  was  not 
a  yearning  of  the  spirit  for  the  infinite,  it  was  not  a  lifting 
of  self  over  the  mountains  to  the  skies  that  suggested  the 
nature  o>f  these  gods.  Least  of  all  was  the  sublimity  of 
the  Hebraic  phrase  present :  "  In  the  beginning  God 
created  the  heavens  and  the  earth,"  nor  the  consciousness 
of  a  cosmogony  in  which  the  spirit  of  God  moved  through 
the  darkness  and  created  light.  Yet  these  gods  were 
sufficient  unto  the  needs  of  Numa's  day  as  they  carried 
all  the  responsibilities  of  a  narrow,  realistic  universe  in 
becoming  the  divine  champions  of  the  City-State.  Out 
of  a  deep  anxiety  they  had  been  born,  and  upon  the  fields 
and  in  the  home  the  flame  of  a  genuine  religious  feeling 
burned  upon  the  altars,  where  the  ritualistic  fulfillment 
of  religious  obligations  was  scrupulously  observed.  What 
degree  of  sentiment  or  enthusiasm  there  existed  is  beyond 
our  ken.  But  the  state  supplemented  the  poverty  of  the 

326 


RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS 

god-idea  with  an  elaboration  of  ritual  which  reacted  upon 
the  worship  in  the  home  and  which  through  ceremony 
cultivated  deeper  reverence.  It  was  toward  the  side  of 
ritual,  for  better  or  for  worse,  that  Rome  threw  all  her 
influence;  it  was  toward  the  side  of  ritualistic  develop- 
ment that  her  instinct  carried  her.  Through  all  the  sub- 
sequent phases  of  the  god-idea,  through  all  the  later 
changes  in  feeling  toward  those  gods,  the  machinery  of 
worship  grew, — an  imposing  institution,  at  times  threaten- 
ing to  lull  to  rest  and  to  smother  real  religious  feeling, 
but  to  the  end  carrying  the  burden  laid  upon  it.  Rome, 
by  the  nature  of  her  people,  was  predestined  to  a  formal- 
ism that  at  the  very  beginning  was  antithetic  to  any 
spiritualization  of  her  state-religion.  More  than  that, 
"  man's  obligatory  part  in  the  ritual  of  the  state  was  abso- 
lutely nil/5  since  the  state  assigned  the  duties  and  respon- 
sibilities of  dealing  with  the  gods  of  the  state  on  behalf 
of  the  state  to  the  properly  constituted  authorities. 

Flamens,  augurs,  Fetial  priests,  Vestals,  pontiffs,  the 
Luperci,  the  Salii,  the  Arval  brotherhood, — in  part  ante- 
dating Numa,  to  be  sure, — conducted  the  state  worship 
at  altars,  in  sacred  precincts  and  in  groves.  So  complete 
was  the  organization  of  these  priesthoods  whose  function 
it  was  to  communicate  with  the  gods  and  learn  their  will, 
that  they  almost  sufficed  throughout  the  later  religious 
history  of  Rome  which  added  but  very  few  major  priest- 
hoods. Prayers,  sacrifices,  festivals,  solemn  vota  and  no 
less  solemn  lustrations,  dedications  of  sacred  sites,  all  re- 
ligious ceremonial  exhibited  an  exact  orderliness  that  re- 
mained as  the  very  essence  of  Roman  religion.  A  char- 
acteristic narrative  was  told  of  the  king  Tullus  Hostilius, 
successor  of  Numa,  of  whom  it  was  said  that  afflicted 
with  a  fever,  he  lost  his  former  high  spirit  of  independ- 
ence and  sought  to  "  get  religion."  Consulting  the  com- 
mentaries of  Numa,  he  became  deeply  interested  in  some 
occult  rites  to  Jupiter  Elicius  but  was  struck  down  by 

327 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

lightning,  by  the  offended  deity,  because  of  some  error 
in  the  ritual.  There  lay  danger  in  the  slightest  infrac- 
tion of  the  rules,  lest  the  pax  deorum  might  be  disturbed. 
No  Brahman  or  Pharisee  was  more  scrupulous  than  the 
ancient  Roman  with  whom  the  idea  of  Pietas  (in  its 
religious  sense) — a  permanent  contribution  to  Roman 
religion — came  to  clear  consciousness,  synonymous  with 
the  due  fulfillment  of  all  the  details  of  worship.  So 
strong  was  this  feeling  that  we  know  that  at  least  on  four 
occasions  the  solemnity  of  the  Latin  Festival  was  inter- 
rupted because  evil  omens  and  oversight  in  the  conduct 
of  the  ceremony  threatened  the  validity  of  the  religious 
performance. 

Another  striking  result  is  recorded  in  Quintilian,  who 
writes  that  in  his  day  the  songs  of  the  Salii  were  scarce 
understood  by  the  priests  themselves,  who,  however,  were 
obligated  to  employ  the  ancient  sacred  rites,  handed  down 
from  generation  to  generation,  by  a  religious  feeling 
which  forbade  any  modernization  of  those  prayers.  In 
the  city  of  the  Four  Regions  of  Numa  there  were  sites 
made  over  to  the  gods  on  the  hills  and  in  the  valleys  at 
points  of  significance  to  the  city-life;  not  that  all  the  di- 
vinities had  their  own  sanctuaries,  nor  that  there  were 
temples  (in  the  true  sense)  erected  as  yet  to  any,  but  in- 
cense burned  on  altars  and  in  the  Forum  the  god  of  im- 
memorial antiquity,  Saturnus,  received  worship,  on  the 
Capitoline  there  was  a  shrine  for  Jupiter  Feretrius,  on 
the  Palatine  the  old  festival  of  the  Parilia  was  conducted. 
Vesta  had  her  rude-covered  hut  to  guard  the  eternal  fire 
and  a  gateway  sufficed  for  Janus.  First  fruits  of  the 
fields  and  of  the  trees,  wreaths,  incense,  sacrificial  cakes, 
offerings  of  milk,  beans  and  spelt  were  the  favorite  offer- 
ings, although  animal  sacrifices — notably  of  the  pig,  sheep 
and  ox — were  also  doubtless  ancient.  As  characteristic 
of  the  simplicity  of  the  early  state  worship  of  Numa's 
day  I  may  quote  Ovid's  account  of  the  festival  of  the 

328 


RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS 

Terminalia  as  it  was  celebrated  in  the  country  districts 
in  his  own  day ;  though  a  few  modifications  of  the  ancient 
country  festival  appear,  in  general  it  maintains  the  ancient 
spirit : 

"  When  the  night  hath  passed,  let  the  god  who  by  his 
landmark  divides  the  fields  be  worshiped  with  accustomed 
honors.  O  Terminus,  whether  thou  art  a  stone  or  a  stock 
sunk  deep  in  the  ground,  even  from  the  time  of  the 
ancients  dost  thou  possess  divinity.  Thee  the  two  owners 
of  the  fields  crown  with  chaplets  from  their  opposite 
sides;  to  thee  they  each  present  two  garlands  and  two 
cakes.  An  altar  is  erected;  to  this  the  peasant  country- 
woman brings  on  a  bit  of  broken  clay  fire  taken  from  the 
warm  hearths.  An  old  man  cuts  up  the  fire-wood  and 
splitting  it  piles  it  on  high.  .  .  .  While  he  is  arousing 
the  first  flames  with  dried  bark,  a  boy  stands  by  and 
holds  in  his  hands  broad  baskets.  When  he  has  thrice 
thrown  fruits  of  the  earth  out  of  the  baskets  into  the 
midst  of  the  flames,  his  little  daughter  offers  sliced  honey- 
combs. Others  hold  wine;  .  .  .  the  crowd  all  arrayed 
in  white  looks  on  and  maintains  a  religious  silence.  The 
common  landmark  is  also  sprinkled  with  the  blood  of  a 
slain  lamb ;  and  the  god  makes  no  complaint  when  a  suck- 
ing pig  is  given  to  him.  The  simple-minded  neighbors 
meet  and  celebrate  this  feast  and  sing  thy  praises,  O  holy 
Terminus ! " 

Such  is  the  charming  picture  that  we  have,  and  in 
the  rustic  ministrants  we  see  the  predecessors  of  the  king, 
the  state  flamens  and  the  Vestal  virgins.  The  state  was 
but  the  household  on  a  larger  scale  and  the  king  had  by 
analogy  there  the  secular  and  religious  authority  of  the 
pater  familias  in  his  own  smaller  home.  The  priests 
of  the  state  did  not  become  a  hierarchical  caste  but  were 
simply  administrative  officials  with  the  pontifex  maxi- 
mus  as  their  august  head,  who  ultimately  was  vested  with 
supreme  authority  in  all  matters  of  religion.  Never  were 

329 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

the  interests  of  a  state,  secular  and  religious,  more  closely 
bound  together,  never  were  religion  and  patriotism  more 
completely  fused. 

This  extended  account  of  the  religion  of  Numa  as 
we  call  it,  has  been  essential  in  order  to  be  able  to  follow 
the  more  readily  the  whole  subsequent  history  of  Roman 
religion.  The  early  concept  of  deus,  the  early  original 
organization  of  the  methods  of  worship,  were  the  true 
expression  of  genuine  Roman  religion,  never  completely 
lost  through  all  of  the  transformations  that  time,  wider 
experience,  and  contacts  with  other  people  brought  about. 

Before  the  close  of  the  regal  period  Rome  increased 
her  original  state  pantheon  by  the  adoption  of  several  new 
gods  whose  cults  had  been  in  previous  existence  in  other 
towns  in  Latium  and  in  southern  Etruria.  Before  the 
close  of  the  century  that  marked  the  end  of  kingship  in 
Rome,  the  city  had  become  mistress  of  Latium  and  this 
military,  political  advance  had  brought  about  an  exten- 
sion of  Rome's  economic  and  social  horizon.  Trade  rela- 
tions had  been  established  with  other  communities,  a  re- 
organization of  the  cavalry  had  been  effected,  there  had 
developed  in  the  city  an  artisan  class,  and  Rome  had  her 
first  experience  with  the  dangerous  game  of  international 
politics.  But  this  new  situation  required  the  friendly  co- 
operation of  new  gods,  because  the  native  gods  of  Numa 
could  not  by  any  extension  of  their  restricted  functions 
become  the  patron  deities  of  these  new  interests.  The 
first  adoption  of  new  gods  into  Rome  cannot  be  ascribed 
to  religious  tolerance  but  must  be  explained  as  due  to  the 
limitations  of  the  old  religious  conceptions.  There  was 
opportunity  for  growth  for  Roman  religion  from  within 
by  the  adoption  of  epithets  and  through  the  worship  of 
abstractions,  but  the  polytheism  of  Rome  permitted  an  ex- 
pansion by  accretions  from  without  and  such  expansion  did 
no  violence  to  accepted  religious  principles.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  naivete  of  this  process  of  accretions  from  with- 

330 


RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS 

out  was  in  entire  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  the  old  Roman 
religion  which  not  only  permitted  but  demanded  divine 
protection  over  every  occupation,  over  every  interest  and 
over  all  endeavor  of  life  whether  individual  or  public. 

From  Tibur,  therefore,  came  the  cult  of  Hercules, 
from  Tusculum,  the  worship  of  Castor,  from  Falerii  the 
goddess  Minerva,  and  from  Aricia  the  new  divinity, 
Diana.  The  arrival  of  these  new-comer  gods  was  attended 
with  no  emotional  disturbance;  Diana  was  an  Italic 
divinity,  Minerva  though  subject  to  Etruscan  influences 
in  Falerii  was  in  origin  Italic,  while  Hercules  and  Castor 
— though  in  origin  Greek — had  become  so  thoroughly 
Latinized  in  Tibur  and  Tusculum  that  Rome  regarded 
them  as  native  and  established  their  altars  within  the 
sacred  line  of  the  pomerium,  that  inviolate  boundary 
line  between  native  and  foreign  religious  ideas.  There 
was  something  of  kinship  between  these  new  divinities 
and  the  family  of  older  gods,  and  accidental  considera- 
tions resulted  in  the  establishment  of  Diana's  and  Miner- 
va's cults  on  the  Aventine  outside  the  pomerium.  Later 
Roman  traditions  played  fast  and  loose  with  the  facts  of 
these  adoptions;  Castor  and  Pollux,  for  example,  were 
represented  in  legend — as  we  read  in  Dionysius  of  Hali- 
carnassus — as  having  led  the  Romans  to  victory  at  the 
battle  of  Lake  Regillus  early  in  the  republican  period; 
after  the  battle,  these  two  splendid  gods,  in  shining  armor, 
fair  to  behold  and  of  imposing  stature,  appeared  in  the 
Roman  Forum  where  at  the  Spring  of  Juturna  they  an- 
nounced the  Roman  victory,  disappearing  as  miraculously 
as  they  had  appeared  to  the  astonished  Roman  gaze; 
legend  found  no  trouble  in  crediting  their  actual  observa- 
tion by  mortal  eyes  and  pointed  to  the  handsome  temple 
of  the  5th  century  as  evidence  for  the  incredulous  of 
their  arrival  at  that  time.  Castor,  however,  in  point  of 
fact  came  to  Rome  with  the  reorganization  of  the  cavalry 
in  the  time  of  Servius  Tullius  galloping  in  on  horse-back, 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

as  it  were,  to  become  the  patron  saint  of  the  knights. 
Rome  did  not  at  random  officially  accept  all  Latin  cults, 
but  permitted  the  private  worship  of  many  deities  not 
incorporated  within  her  state  pantheon.  But  in  the  case 
of  Castor,  not  satisfied  with  the  preparedness  visible  in 
her  armed  horsemen,  she  needs  must  have  besides  the 
divine  sanction  of  an  invisible  god  for  her  ambitions.  To 
Diana  there  was  built  a  temple  on  the  Aventine,  as  the 
common  sanctuary  of  all  the  Latins.  But  the  significance 
of  the  cult  of  Diana  lies  rather  in  the  temple  structure 
which  contained  a.  statue,  for  this  departure  meant  a  great 
break  with  older  traditions. 

This  break  was  intensified  by  the  erection  of  the  Etrus- 
can temple  on  the  Capitoline  to  the  new  triad  of  Jupiter, 
Juno  and  Minerva;  this  temple  also  held  a  sensuous  repre- 
sentation of  a  god,  Jupiter  Optimus  Maximus.  At  the 
very  moment  that  Rome  was  triumphant,  politically,  her 
older  concept  of  god  was  on  the  point  of  vanishing.  Rome 
was  on  the  threshold  of  that  career  of  conquest  by  which 
she  in  time  gained  the  whole  world,  but  unconsciously 
she  was  in  danger  of  losing  her  own  soul  with  a  sur- 
render of  her  old-time  gods  and  her  former  simplicities 
of  worship.  The  Etruscan  domination  that  came  to  a 
political  end  with  the  inauguration  of  a  republic,  per- 
sisted in  the  influence  of  the  temple  which  paradoxically 
rose  serene  on  the  Capitol  as  the  very  centre  of  public 
worship  and  the  centre  of  republican  aspirations.  The 
inevitable  revolution  in  religious  thought  came  in  due 
season. 

Rome  had  established  a  precedent  in  the  inauguration 
of  the  cults  of  Hercules,  Castor,  Minerva  and  Diana  that 
made  the  adoption  of  Greek  cults  during  the  next  period, 
from  circa  500  to  200  B.C.,  seem  a  logical  step.  The 
Sibylline  books,  which  had  arrived  in  Rome  early  in 
the  republican  period  and  were  cherished  in  the  temple 
of  Jupiter  Optimus  Maximus,,  were  responsible  for  the 

332 


RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS 

seemingly  harmless,  apparently  analogous  adoption  of 
the  worship  of  Greek  divinities,  Apollo,  Demeter,  Hermes, 
Poseidon,  Asclepios,  Pluto  and  Persephone.  Real  crises, 
such  as  a  grain  famine,  the  need  of  carrying  grain  across 
the  seas,  pestilence,  and  destruction  of  a  part  of  the 
city-wall  by  lightning  were  the  sufficient  causes  for  con- 
sulting this  new  body  of  religious  prescriptions  to  meet 
the  ills  for  which  the  old  gods — in  the  nature  of  things — 
could  not  furnish  the  remedy.  This  did  not  necessarily 
carry  with  it  loss  of  confidence  in  older  divinities  within 
their  anciently  defined  spheres,  but  was  equivalent  to 
increasing  the  state's  total  of  insurance  through  payment 
of  premiums  in  the  form  of  gifts  and  sacrifices  to  the 
newly  accepted  divine  protectors. 

But  the  influence  of  the  Greek  concept  of  anthropo- 
morphic deities  spread  insidiously  throughout  the  whole 
structure  of  Roman  religious  beliefs  so  that  in  the  course 
of  three  hundred  years  the  rank  growth  that  had  grown 
from  the  seed,  arresting  the  power  of  an  independent 
native  growth,  all  but  choked  the  earlier  conception  of  a 
mysterious  power  working  in  the  world.  That  transfor- 
mation of  the  old  Roman  god-idea  through  mythologies 
—partly  creditable,  but  in  eqoial  part,  discreditable)— 
through  statues  which  as  Varro  recognized  took  away 
fear  of  god,  and  finally  through  the  Grczcus  ritus,  spared 
only  a  few  of  the  native  gods ;  in  time  the  Greek  epidemic 
developed  a  feverish  passion  for  identifying  the  old  with 
the  new  (sometimes  on  the  basis  of  similarities  but  often 
on  the  most  arbitrary  basis)  and  for  merging  the  Italic 
gods  in  the  more  human  but  less  mysterious  Greek  di- 
vinities. The  aesthetic  and  spiritual  values  of  anthropo- 
morphic deity  were  lost  upon  the  Roman  in  large  degree 
before  200  B.C.  ;  Rome  introduced  Greek  lectisternia  and 
supplicationes,  even  while  forgetting  the  native  invisible 
nunicn,  who  had  worked  with  force  in  a  particular  de- 
partment of  human  life  and  who  had  represented  a  nobler 

333 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

conception  and  for  the  Roman  a  far  more  effective  con- 
ception of  divinity.  In  399  B.C.,  in  pursuance  of  the 
directions  of  the  Sibylline  books,  a  Greek  lectisternium 
was  for  the  first  time  conducted  in  Rome ;  images  of  gods 
and  goddesses  in  human  form  reclined  on  their  couches 
and  appeared  to  partake  of  dinner,  in  human  need  of  food 
and  drink.  What  made  this  doubly  significant  was  that 
the  Senate  had  recourse  to  this  device  for  bringing  to  an 
end  a  pestilence,  admitting  thereby  the  insufficiency  of  the 
old  cults,  of  old  native  forms  of  prayer  and  sacrifice.  In 
217  B.C.  a  lectisternium  on  a  grand  scale  was  conducted, 
and  it  was  a  virtual  "  turning  point  in  the  religious  his- 
tory of  Rome,'*  for  at  six  couches  twelve  great  gods 
were  seen  with  no  distinction  between  native  gods  and 
Greek  divinities ;  the  twelve  gods  thereafter  were  the  cen- 
tral figures  of  the  Grseco-Roman  pantheon  which  resulted 
from  this  contact  between  Greece  and  Rome.  Long  be- 
fore Rome  conquered  Greece  politically  Greece  had  com- 
pleted the  conquest  of  Rome  religiously — a  phenomenon 
second  in  importance  only  to  the  astounding  religious 
revival  of  Augustus'  day.  But  so  completely  lost  in  Greek 
gods  were  the  Roman,  that  Roman  scholarship  of  the  first 
century  B.C.  had  the  utmost  difficulty  in  distinguishing  the 
original  outlines  and  qualities. 

This  abandonment  of  the  old  theology,  which  neces- 
sarily involved  the  disappearance  of  many  of  the  old  cults, 
was  hastened  by  the  events  of  the  Second  Punic  War  dur- 
ing which  prodigies  of  an  unparalleled  and  terrifying 
nature  were  reported  from  all  over  Italy.  The  dreari- 
ness of  war,  protracted  almost  through  the  entire  third 
century,  with  the  Samnites,  with  Pyrrhus  and  with  the 
Carthaginians,  resulted  in  religious  depression  and  shook 
the  foundations  of  the  entire  structure  of  organized  wor- 
ship. Ships  were  seen  in  the  skies,  a  temple  of  Hope  was 
struck  by  lightning,  divination  tablets  shrunk,  statues 
and  shields  sweated  blood,  bloody  ears  of  grain  fell  into 

334 


RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS 

reapers'  baskets,  armed  forces  were  seen  storming  the 
Janiculum,  and  in  terror,  in  bewildered  uncertainty  as  to 
where  God  might  be  or  what  his  true  nature  was,  the 
Roman  state  found  its  chief  religious  consolation  in  the 
foreign  books  of  oracles  resting  in  Jupiter's  great  temple. 
Most  extraordinary  offerings  were  made  to  the  gods,  a 
ver  sacrum  was  declared  and  human  sacrifices  of  Greeks 
and  Gauls  were  made.  The  hysteria  grew  and  the  Roman 
rites  fell  into  disuse,  not  only  in  private  but  in  public 
also ;  in  the  Forum  and  on  the  Capitol  crowds  of  women 
sacrificed  according  to  new  rites  and  prayed  to  the  gods 
in  modes  new  to  Rome.  This  rebellion  against  the  re- 
ligion of  the  state  was  stayed  by  the  defeat  and  death 
of  Hasdrubal,  when  finally  the  shadows  seemed  dispelled 
from  Latium.  The  Senate  expressed  its  joy  through  the 
medium  of  a  Greek  ceremony,  a  supplication,  and  the 
people's  confidence  in  their  gods  was  temporarily  restored 
by  this  success  while  thanksgivings  were  offered  to  their 
"  immortal "  gods — Graeco-Roman  gods  to  be  sure,  but 
gods,  none  the  less,  who  seemed  to  have  saved  the  state. 
But  the  arch-enemy,  whom  Rome  accused  of  having 
no  fear  of  the  gods,  no  religious  scruples,  who  had  swept 
through  the  Italian  cities  like  a  flame  through  the  pine 
forests,  remained  in  Italy  in  defiance,  as  it  were,  of  the 
gods  in  whom  Rome  still  placed  her  trust.  Finally,  it 
was  the  Sibylline  books,  again,  that  declared  that  the 
foreign  foe  could  be  driven  from  Italy  only  if  the  Idaean 
Mother  were  brought  from  Pessinus  to  Rome.  With  the 
adoption  of  the  worship  of  the  Phrygian  goddess,  Magna 
Mater,  in  204  B.C.,  the  last  chapter  was  written  in  the 
religious  drama  of  Rome  of  these  three  hundred  years 
between  500-200  B.C.  With  the  expulsion  of  Hannibal, 
Rome's  supremacy  in  Italy  was  undisputed  but  not  only 
had  she  in  the  interim  lost  her  own  religion  but  by  re- 
ceiving Cybele  within  the  pomerium  she  effaced  all  dis- 
tinctions between  the  Graeco-Roman  deities  and  foreign 

335 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

gods,  who  were  now  free  to  settle  upon  her  soil.  With 
great  state  and  ceremony,  in  which  equites,  senators, 
plebs,  mothers,  daughters,  Vestals  took  part,  the  stranger 
divinity  was  hailed  with  gladness  and  the  image  of  a 
sacred  stone  conveyed  with  pomp  into  the  temple  of  Vic- 
tory. The  very  antithesis  of  the  sobriety  of  Roman  ritual, 
the  ecstatic  ceremony  of  mutilated  priests  of  Magna 
Mater  found  a  welcome  in  Rome  which  thus  practically 
became  the  worthy  retreat  of  every  divinity.  The  mock- 
ery of  this  rejoicing  was  unconsciously  rendered  com- 
plete by  a  celebration  of  another  lectisternium,  that  opiate 
which  Rome  had  come  to  find  so  indispensable. 

As  we  come  to  the  next  period  in  Roman  religious 
history,  200  B.C.  to  Augustus,  we  find  a  condition  of  re- 
ligious unrest  which  must  have  been  fatal  had  there  not 
been  a  saving  element  of  genuine  religious  feeling  that 
flowed  as  a  deep  stream  underneath  the  surface  phe- 
nomena. The  gods  had  become  so  Humanized  that  they 
were  upon  a  low  level  of  humanity  while  the  acceptance 
of  the  exotic  cult  of  the  Great  Mother  into  the  body  of 
Roman  religious  organization  afforded  only  a  temporary 
relief.  The  religion  of  the  state  was  at  its  lowest  ebb 
of  meaning,  influence  and  inspiration.  It  gained  no  new 
informing  spirit  to  illumine  or  to  exalt  the  accepted 
Grseco-Roman  conception  of  gods;  the  old  notion  of 
religious  obligations  was  enshrined  in  ceremonies  that 
became  fossilized,  while  priesthoods  were  involved  in  the 
degradation  of  base  politics.  Temples  fell  into  ruin, 
priesthoods  were  vacant  for  years,  a  debauchee  was  elected 
(209  B.C.)  flamen  Dialis  in  order  that  the  taboos  restrict- 
ing the  life  of  that  great  priest  might  lead  to  his  reforma- 
tion; the  story  of  Cato  is  well  known  that  he  marveled 
how  one  haruspex  upon  meeting  another  could  refrain 
from  scornful,  ironical  laughter.  The  pontiffs  had 
neglected  the  calendar  to  the  mischief  of  the  festivals. 
Varro  feared  the  old  Roman  religion  would  perish  through 

336 


RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS 

neglect;  Sallust  satirically  contrasted  the  men  of  his  own 
day  with  their  ancestors,  religiosissumi  mortales.  With 
unerring  accuracy  the  stage  attacked  two  fundamental 
defects:  the  metamorphosis  of  the  Roman  gods  into  di- 
vinities with  human  frailties  did  not  escape  the  cleverness 
of  the  comic  poet,  who  did  not  shrink  from  representing 
the  amours  of  Jupiter  upon  the  stage;  equally  blase  was 
the  tragedy  that  openly  proclaimed  the  indifference  of 
the  gods  to  the  fate  of  mankind. 

Such  degradation  of  the  gods  and  denial  of  their 
power  left  to  the  orthodox-minded  after  200  B.C.  who  in- 
herited the  evil  consequences  of  the  previous  period,  little 
comfort.  He  had  the  refuge  of  his  home  with  its  cults 
where  religion  "  had  placed  a  certain  consecration  upon 
the  simple  life  of  the  family,"  and  during  the  following 
150  years  the  household  cults  escaped  the  corrupting 
influence  of  ridicule  and  of  indifference.  But  the  state 
maintained  its  soul-less  machinery  of  worship  all  the  time 
it  was  advancing  beyond  the  seas  to  Mediterranean  em- 
pire ;  and  all  the  power  of  the  state  was  back  of  traditional 
forms  of  worship  that  seemed  to  the  unimaginative  Ro- 
man the  very  essence  of  religion.  But  emotional,  spiritual 
and  intellectual  rebellions  manifested  themselves  in  Diony- 
siac  orgies,  in  Pythagoreanism,  in  Stoicism  and  Epicur- 
eanism and  in  the  private  worship  of  gods  from  the 
Orient.  The  dignity  of  Roman  ceremonials  could  not 
satisfy  the  deeper  craving  for  emotional  worship,  the 
sincerer  yearning  to  know  the  truth  about  God  and  the 
desire  to  be  in  closer  communion  with  him.  Constraint 
of  habit  prevented  the  state  from  seizing  opportunities 
that  existed  for  its  own  spiritual  reformation. 

Stoic  and  Epicurean  philosophies  of  religion  breathed 
a  freer  spirit,  bound  neither  by  the  scruple  of  cult  nor  by 
fear  of  the  gods.  Each  had  rediscovered  God — one  in 
the  eternal  fire,  the  other  in  the  remote  intermundia.  The 
state  religion  might  have  been  illumined  by  adoption  of 
22  337 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

the  Stoic  concept  of  Fate,  and  from  Stoicism  the  state 
theology  might  have  acquired  a  profounder  understanding 
of  Providence.  With  all  of  the  bitter  Epicurean  denuncia- 
tion of  the  old  conception  of  providential  divine  regard, 
the  Epicurean  theory  of  god  had  the  power,  though  not 
the  opportunity,  of  purging  the  old  polytheism  of  its  un- 
worthy mythologies  and  of  raising  the  Graeco-Roman 
gods  to  a  mo-re  exalted  level.  A  pontifex  maximus  had 
declared  it  expedient  to  deceive  the  masses  because  the 
truth  of  philosophic  speculation  was  harmful — which 
meant  that  it  was  dangerous  for  the  organized  systems 
of  worship.  Thus,  because  of  the  self-sufficiency  of  the 
state  institution,  there  was  but  little  reaction  upon  the 
religion  of  the  state  from  these  philosophies  of  religion. 
Philosophic  speculation  did  not  release  man  from  the 
necessity  of  remaining  a  conformist  in  worship;  while 
mental  reservations  made  such  external  conformity  a 
possibility,  the  drama  of  salvation  was  enacted  only  in 
individual  souls  and  the  magnificent  state  machinery  of 
religion  remained  an  imposing  institution  placed  above 
the  laws  of  reason. 

It  was  the  strict  and  ceremonious  observation  of  all 
of  the  minutiae  of  worship  that  made  up  the  background 
of  this  period  of  unrest,  during  which  the  state  main- 
tained all  the  traditions  of  the  letter  with  no  regard  to 
the  decline  in  faith.  In  the  absence  of  the  spirit  that 
had  originally  prompted  and  animated  the  ceremonials, 
the  inheritance  of  a  multiplication  of  formulae  and  of  an 
elaboration  of  prayers  hardly  contributed  to  the  vitality 
of  those  ceremonies.  The  votum,  a  contract  between  man 
and  god,  and  implying  the  strongest  belief  in  divinity, 
cast  in  legal  mold,  lost  its  validity  in  an  age  of  skepticism 
and  distrust.  Lustrationes,  which  once  had  restored  the 
disturbed  equilibrium  between  men  and  gods  and  reestab- 
lished the  pax  deorum,  became  a  spectacle  for  the  eye 
without  appealing  to  the  heart.  The  sunrise  offering  of 

338 


RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS 

fruits  and  incense,  the  wearing  of  wreaths  of  grain,  the 
solemn  "  procession  of  victims  .  .  .  round  the  fields, 
driven  by  a  garlanded  crowd,  carrying  olive  branches  and 
chanting  "  retained  for  the  Ambarvalia,  at  best,  a  senti- 
ment of  affection.  Sacrifices,  whether  honorific,  piacular 
or  sacramental  became  a  sham,  with  a  decline  in  belief 
in  the  providential  regard  of  the  gods — and  the  char- 
acteristically Roman  scrupulous  care  exercised  at  sacrifices 
could  not  save  such  ceremonies  from  debasement;  there 
were  the  strictest  regulations  concerning  the  sex,  age 
and  color  of  the  victim,  the  dress  and  veiled  head  of 
the  priests,  the  silence  of  the  bystanders — all  of  which 
were  significant  in  an  age  of  belief,  but  equally  a  delusion 
in  a  time  that  was  threatened  with  a  collapse  of  old 
beliefs.  Such  an  age  hardly  required  the  services  of  the 
I ndigit amenta  or  pontiffs'  artificially  elaborated  lists  of 
the  names  of  the  gods  and  methods  of  properly  addressing 
them.  These  books  grew  originally  out  of  the  "  old 
national  belief  in  the  ubiquity  of  a  world  of  spirits,"  but 
were  out  of  harmony  with  an  age  that  required  simplicity 
rather  than  over-development  of  ritual.  Varro  had,  to 
the  amusement  of  St.  Augustine,  enumerated  the  gods 
who  watched  over  man's  life  in  all  its  details  from  the 
time  of  conception  to  the  time  of  death. 

The  age  was  out  of  sympathy,  too,  with  the  multi- 
plicity of  prayers  that  previous  conditions  had  required. 
These  showed  little  desire  to  conform  one's  life  to  the 
will  of  the  gods  and  had  been  offered  for  material  rather 
than  for  moral  blessings.  The  mumbling  of  prayers  by 
priests  who  performed  their  state  function  in  religion 
purely  through  ritual,  was  the  final  touch  revealing  the 
paradoxical  betrayal  of  real  religious  feeling  into  the 
possession  of  ceremonial  and  cult.  Lucretius  had  elo- 
quently protested  that  piety  did  not  consist  in  being  often 
seen  with  veiled  head  turning  to  a  stone,  approaching 
every  altar,  falling  prostrate  on  the  ground,  spreading 

339 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

out  the  palms  before  the  shrines  of  the  gods,  sprinkling 
the  altars  with  much  blood  of  beasts  and  linking  vow 
to  vow,  but  so  deeply  fixed  was  this  belief  in  the  state 
ritual  that  it  survived  this  period  of  tribulation  and  in  the 
time  of  Augustus  piety  was  once  more  defined  in  the  old 
terms  of  right  performance  rather  than  by  any  new  con- 
cept of  the  right  spirit.  Even  the  enlightened  Cicero, 
"  although  hef  could  not  believe  in  the  old  theology,  put 
the  jus  divinum  in  the  forefront,"  and  boasted  of  Rome's 
superiority  in  religion,  i.e.,  the  cult  of  the  gods. 

But  even  during  the  time  of  apparent  disintegration, 
ritual  had  carried  along  the  burden  of  religion  and  in- 
sensibly forces  had  been  at  work  that  resulted  in  the 
salvation  of  the  Graeco-Roman  gods.  The  Greek  gods 
had  arrived  in  Rome  at  the  time  of  their  decadence,  and 
the  uncultured  Roman  could  appreciate  only  the  baser 
qualities  of  that  theology.  As  Rome,  herself,  however, 
became  tutored  in  the  finer  arts  and  feelings,  through  the 
processes  of  Greek  education,  the  Olympian  gods  once 
more  became  brilliant  deities  to  the  imagination  of  the 
orthodox.  The  deplorable  loss  of  faith  of  the  preceding 
period  was  followed  by  a  revival  under  Augustus.  The 
glowing  poetry  of  the  period  represents  these  human 
Graeco-Roman  gods,  even  with  their  humanity,  far  above 
the  level  of  man,  exalted  and  truly  divine — gods  in  whose 
living  presence  there  was  actual,  deep  belief  and  to  whom 
prayer  could  rise  with  the  spontaneity  of  an  unques- 
tioning veneration.  Contemporary  poetry  thrills  with  a 
recovery  of  the  conviction  in  the  immortality  of  the 
gods — and  from  the  beginning  Jupiter  had  known  of 
Rome's  greatness,  at  length  about  to  be  realized.  "  Pro- 
tect us  by  thy  might,  Great  God  our  King,"  expresses 
a  sentiment  that  trembled  upon  pagan  lips  and  came 
from  pagan  hearts  which  believed  in  an  omnipotent  father 
who  from  azure  heights  gazed  calmly  down  upon  his 
chosen  people  and  in  whose  justice  their  destinies  were 

340 


RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS 

safe.  Jupiter  came  as  near  to  infinity  as  it  was  possible 
for  a  finite,  nature  god  to  come.  The  academic  debate 
of  Cicero's  De  Natura  Deorum  is  far  removed  from 
Virgil's  passionate  belief  in  a  divine  sanction  assured  the 
state  and  pales  in  the  glow  of  enthusiasm  that  resulted 
under  Augustus  of  a  revival  of  many  old  priesthoods, 
a  rebuilding  of  many  temples  and  a  revitalization  of  ritual 
more  ornate  than  ever  before. 

The  gods  whose  neglect  had  brought  many  a  woe  upon 
Hesperia  in  her  sorrow,  were  now  duly  worshiped  by 
augurs,  quindecemviri,  Vestals  and  pontiffs,  while  in 
the  home  the  domestic  cults  of  Vesta  and  of  the  Penates 
were  renewed  with  deeper  confidence.  The  continuance 
of  morning  prayers  and  of  libations  to  household  deities 
at  meals  had  kept  the  flame  of  religious  belief  alive 
during  all  the  storm  and  stress  of  state  affairs.  The 
intimately  beloved  Faunus  of  the  fields  along  with  goat- 
footed  Satyrs  and  nymphs  occupied  his  haunts  to  the 
delight  of  rustics,  when  Pan  shook  the  piny  covering  of 
his  semi-savage  head  as  he  raced  over  the  reeds  with 
his  sensuously  curved  lips  in  order  not  to  cease  his  wood- 
land melody — all,  in  spite  of  Lucretius'  skepticism  and 
Plutarch's  elegy.  Festivals  proceeded  more  orderly  with 
Caesar's  correction  of  the  calendar  and  even  in  the  "  light 
artistic  half-belief "  of  the  poet  from  Sulmo  we  can 
readily  read  the  sanctification  of  patriotism  for  which 
Augustus  was  striving. 

The  "  Father  of  his  country  "  directed  the  stream 
of  religious  belief  in  channels  of  devotion  to  the  new 
empire,  by  a  rededicatio-n  of  the  Arval  brotherhood  to 
the  imperial  cult,  by  a  conspicuous  favoritism  for  the 
cult  of  Mars  the  Avenger,  for  the  cult  of  the  deified 
Csesar  and  of  the  Palatine  Apollo.  The  festival  of  the 
Parilia — maintaining  an  unbroken  contact  with  the  days 
of  Rome's  beginnings — the  Secular  games,  celebrated 
with  unparalleled  splendor  and  charged  with  a  new  spirit, 

34i 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

fortified  the  patriotism  of  the  new  era.  This  patriotism 
had  come  out  of  the  travail  of  a  hundred  years  and  saw 
its  justification  in  blessings  of  secure  peace. 

But  there  was  impending  a  new  cult  that  presently 
cast  its  ominous  shadow  over  these  auspicious  days.  Out 
of  the  500  years'  acquaintance  with  gods,  human  in 
aspect  though  not  mortal,  Rome  finally  came  to  take  the 
step  that  Greece  had  taken  before,  of  deifying  man ;  from 
the  worship  of  god-men  the  step  was  easy  to  the  adora- 
tion of  the  man-god.  Ennius  had  200  years  before  trans- 
lated that  baneful  romance  of  Euhemerus  which  had 
taught  the  mortal  origin  of  all  gods,  and  Emperor  worship 
became  a  conspicuous  centre  of  all  state  religious  cere- 
monies. Though  there  eventuated  the  cult  of  Roma 
Aeterna,  rich  with  possibilities,  the  days  for  the  worship 
of  abstractions  had  long  since  passed,  and  marble  temples 
and  imposing  ceremonies  could  not  guarantee  life  to 
cults  that  failed  to  correspond  to  a  growing  yearning  for 
a  more  personal  contact  with  God. 

The  earlier  deification  of  such  abstractions  as  Honor, 
Virtue,  Concord,  Faith,  had  given  a  religious  sanction 
to  these  moralities  but  redemption  of  Roman  society, 
private  or  public,  had  not  been  secured  thereby — either 
in  the  first  century  B.C.,  as  is  abundantly  testified  by 
Lucretius,  Sallust  and  Cicero,  or  in  the  first  century  A.D., 
as  Juvenal  knew  only  too  well.  It  had  not  at  an  earlier 
time  prevented  the  breaking  of  a  treaty  with  Tarentum 
nor  had  it  mitigated  the  horrors  of  the  Civil  War.  Horace 
had  indulged  the  vain  hope  that  these  cults  had  borne 
permanent  fruitage  in  the  hearts  of  men,  but  all  Roman 
cult  had  the  fatal  defect  of  not  inspiring  an  individual 
sense  of  right  or  wrong.  "  The  Inside  of  the  Cup  "  had 
to  be  purged  as  Lucretius  ardently  exclaimed  but  this 
reforming  principle  found  no  entrance  into  the  circle  of 
Roman  religious  ideas.  Cicero  believed  pictas  and  justitia 
to  be  complementary ;  the  binding  force  of  the  oath  in 

342 


RELIGION  OF  THE  ROMANS  , 

social  and  political  life  was  strong;  the  disciplinary  value 
of  ritual  was  great  and  the  sense  of  responsibility  it  cul- 
tivated was  an  important  contribution  to  virtustbvt  neither 
humility  nor  a  contrite  spirit  were  characteristic  products 
of  the  Roman's  relations  with  his  gods.  The  vain  re- 
grets over  the  disappearance  of  the  old  simplicities  of 
worship  far  outweighed  in  Roman  consciousness  any 
sting  of  remorse  over  the  real  secret  of  the  failure  of 
Roman  cult  and  ritual.  Cicero's  lament  that  no  one 
prayed  to  the  gods  for  virtus  did  not  recall  Roman  re- 
ligion to  its  own  reformation.  St.  Augustine's  observa- 
tion that  the  pagan  Roman  did  not  pray  for  immortality 
called  attention  to  another  shortcoming  that  an  age  given 
more  and  more  to  otherworldliness  could  not  condone. 
It  was  not  in  religion  that  the  orthodox  Roman  sought 
abiding  peace;  the  comfort  and  the  solace  that  the  world 
craved  in  the  first  and  second  centuries  A.D.  were  not 
there. 

Cult  had  carried  Roman  religion  along  the  stream  of 
time  but  the  insufficiency  of  its  content  was  not  concealed 
by  the  rich  cloak  that  the  Roman  state  wrapped  about  it. 
Rome  had  become  more  and  more  resplendent  in  the 
empire  period  with  glittering  temples  of  marble  but  all 
the  externals  of  cult  could  not  satisfy  the  growing  spirit- 
ual yearning  for  a  deeper  and  more  personal  knowledge 
of  God  and  for  a  greater  sanctity  of  life.  Stoicism, 
Pythagoreanism,  Mithraism  and  Christianity  were  all 
better  equipped  to  meet  the  human  need.  Roman  religion 
could  not  affect  any  real  synthesis  of  these  variously  ideal 
systems  with  itself;  her  own  tolerance  of  a  variety  of 
religious  beliefs  was  conditioned  by  a  conformity  in  wor- 
ship— an  impossible  barrier  for  Christianity — yet  one  in- 
evitably set  up  by  a  state  that  had  finally  come  to  Emperor 
worship  and  State  worship  as  the  final  expression  of  its 
religious  aspiration.  To  the  end,  cult,  the  real  expression 
of  the  Roman  genius,  was  in  the  fore-front  of  Roman 

343 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

religion;  the  inherent  binding  quality  of  religio,  manifest 
in  ritual,  had  long  ago  cramped  Rome's  religious  imagina- 
tion ;  it  now  abstracted  all  real  liberty  from  Rome's  vision 
of  religious  duties  that  must  needs  remain  subservient 
to  the  state.  With  the  inability  of  the  cult  to  carry  the 
new  triumphant  ideas,  the  gods  of  Rome  faded  in  the 
twilight  of  unbelief  and  the  paganism  of  the  Eternal  City 
became  as  a  tale  that  is  told. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

EMIL  AUST:  Die  Religion  der  Romer,  Miinster  i.  W.  (Aschendorff, 
1899). 

CYRIL  BAILEY:  The  Religion  of  Ancient  Rome,  Chicago  (The  Open 
Court  Publishing  Co.,  1007). 

G.  BOISSIER:  La  Religion  Romaine  d'Auguste  aux  Antonins,  Paris 
(Hachette  et  Cie,  2  vols.  1874). 

J.  B.  CARTER:  The  Religion  of  Numa,  New  York  (The  Macmillan 
Co.,  1006). 

J.  B.  CARTER:  The  Religious  Life  of  Ancient  Rome,  Boston  (Hough- 
ton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1911). 

F.  CUMONT:  Oriental  Religions  in  Roman  Paganism,  Chicago  (The 
Open  Court  Publishing  Co.,  1911). 

F.  CUMONT:  Astrology  and  Religion  Among  the  Greeks  and  Ro- 
mans, New  York  (G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  1912). 

W.  WARDE  FOWLER:  The  Roman  Festivals,  London  (Macmillan  & 
Co.,  1908). 

W.  WARDE  FOWLER  :  The  Religious  Experience  of  the  Roman  People. 
London  (Macmillan  &  Co.,  1911). 

W.  WARDE  FOWLER:  Roman  Ideas  of  Deity,  London  (Macmillan 
&  Co.,  1914)- 

T.  R.  GLOVER  :  The  Conflict  of  Religions  in  the  Early  Roman  Em- 
pire, London  (Methuen  &  Co.,  1909). 

A.  DEMARCHI:  It  Culto  Privato  di  Roma  Antica,  Milano  (Hoepli, 
1896). 

C.  H.  MOORE:  The  Religious  Thought  of  the  Greeks,  c.  vii,  "Vic- 
tory of  Greece  over  Rome;"  c.  viii,  "Oriental  Religions,"  Cam- 
bridge (Harvard  University  Press,  1916). 

S.  REINACH:  Orpheus:  A  General  History  of  Religions,  c.  iii,  "The 
Greeks  and  the  Romans,"  New  York  (G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons, 
1909). 

GEORG  WISSOWA  :  Religion  u.  Kultus  der  Romer,  Munich  (C.  H. 
Beck,  1912). 


344 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  TEUTONS 
BY  AMANDUS  JOHNSON 

THE  purpose  of  this  brief  sketch  is  to  outline  the  main 
features  of  the  religion  of  the  primitive  Germanic  peoples, 
as  it  appears  (from  available  sources)  in  the  first  cen- 
turies of  our  era,  not  to  reconstruct  earlier  forms  nor 
to  discuss  individual  theories  of  origin  or  possible  lines 
of  development. 

By  religion  I  here  mean  man's  total  conceptions  of 
the  world  beyond  his  material  environment  and  material 
self,  in  other  words,  "  man's  attitude  towards  the  un- 
known," not  necessarily  including  a  spiritual  relation  with 
a  higher  power.  Under  this  head  (of  religion)  will  fall 
two  divisions,  mythology  and  theology. 

Mythology  (without  any  reference  to  the  popular 
meaning  as  to  the  truth  or  untruth  of  the  conceptions  in 
question)  includes:  (i)  the  theory  and  history  of  crea- 
tion \cosmogony)  ;  (2)  the  arrangement,  order  and  man- 
agement of  the  world  (cosmology)  ;  (3)  the  transmigra- 
tion of  souls,  the  life  after  this,  the  end  of  the  world 
and  final  judgment  (eschatology) .  Theology  on  the  other 
hand — possible  of  application  only  in  higher  forms  of 
religion — includes:  (i)  the  theory  of  man's  relation  to 
the  gods  and  indirectly  his  relation  to  his  fellow-man,  in 
other  words,  cult,  rites,  ethics  (sacrifices,  prayers,  man- 
ner o-f  life,  etc.)  ;  (2)  and,  in  the  case  of  highly  civilized 
peoples,  a  systematic  or  philosophical  arrangement  of  re- 
ligious conceptions  (this  being  absent  in  primitive  re- 
ligions is  found  only  to  a  limited  extent  in  Scandinavian 
Religion,  the  so-called  Norse  Mythology,  as  presented 
in  the  Edda). 

345 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  FAST  AND  PRESENT 

A  kind  of  dualism  permeates  Teutonic  religion.  Life 
or  spirit  and  matter  were  coexisting  and  eternal;  there 
were  two  elements,  fire  and  water;  two  conditions  or 
states,  heat  and  cold ;  two  kinds  of  good  powers  or  gods, 
the  Vanir  and  Aesir  (the  gods  proper) ;  two  kinds  of 
evil  powers,  the  Thursar  and  the  J dinar  (the  giants 
proper),  etc., — other  examples  will  appear  in  the  follow- 
ing paragraphs. 

No  other  primitive  religion  is  so  logical  and  conse- 
quential in  its  development  along  its  basic  idea,  and  as  we 
shall  see,  is  singularly  in  accord  with  modern  scientific 
thought  in  its  fundamental  conception  about  the  origin  of 
the  universe,  namely  the  reaction  of  heat  and  cold. 

As  in  the  case  of  many  other  religions,  several  ages 
or  periods  can  be  distinguished:  (i)  the  age  of  chaos, 

(2)  the  first  period  of  creation  with  the  age  of  bliss, 

(3)  the  second  period  of  creation  or  the  age  of  growth 
and  development,  (4)  and  finally  the  destruction  and  the 
new  age. 

The  religion  sprang  from  the  soul  of  the  people,  was 
an  outgrowth  of  their  "  inner  life "  and  reflects  their 
longing  for  spiritual  and  mystic  communion  with  nature 
and  "  the  supernatural  world."  In  their  religion  we  thus 
have  a  key  to  their  nature;  a  mirror  of  their  inmost  self. 
It  is  therefore  an  interesting  and  important  product  that 
cannot  be  neglected  by  any  student  of  the  civilization  of 
England,  of  Germany  or  of  the  Scandinavian  countries 
(and,  shall  I  say,  of  the  United  States  of  America,  the 
civilization  of  which  is  largely  a  child  o-f  the  above- 
mentioned  nations?).1 

The  cosmic  conceptions  of  the  early  Teutons  were 
briefly  as  follows :  Before  "  the  morning  of  time  "  "  there 
was  neither  sand  nor  lake  nor  cool  billows;  there  was 

1  The  writer,  some  years  ago  an  adherent  of  what  might  be  called 
the  "  wanderlust "  theory,  championed  by  many  scholars  of  the  last 
century  and  of  today,  is  now  firmly  convinced  of  the  tenability  of 
the  "  spontaneous  theory." 

346 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  TEUTONS 

neither  earth  nor  lofty  heaven."  But  there  was  a  gaping 
or  yawning  abyss  called  Ginnungagap  on  opposite  sides  of 
which,  to  the  north  and  south,  were  two  worlds,  Mmy- 
pellsheim  (the  home  of  heat)  and  Niftheim  (the  home  of 
mist  or  cold).  In  the  midst  of  the  latter  was  the  great 
spring  Hvergelmir  (the  noisy  kettle),  whence  flowed 
twelve  streams  (Elivagar)  southward  towards  Ginnunga- 
gap. On  their  course  through  the  regions  of  eternal  cold 
the  waters  of  these  streams  froze  and  during  unnumbered 
ages  layer  was  added  to  layer.  But  the  forces  of  heat 
were  also  at  work  in  the  world  of  fire.  Sparks  thence 
never  ceased  flying  and  with  increasing  size  and  power 
they  crossed  the  abyss  and  fell  on  the  ice  fields  of  southern 
Nifiheim.  The  ice  began  to-  melt  and  the  water  to  drip. 
The  spirit,  which  was  embedded  in  the  ice  and  which 
gave  it  a  salty  taste,  was  liberated.  The  result  was  a 
living  being  Ymir,  the  first  of  the  giants  and  of  living 
things  (the  evil  power  thus  being  earlier  than  the  good). 
A  cow,  Authhumbla,  also  sprang  into  life  from  the  con- 
tact of  heat  and  cold  and  from  her  milk  Ymir  obtained 
his  nourishment. 

The  cow,  on  the  other  hand,  lived  from  the  salty  ice- 
blocks  which  she  licked.  Thereby  other  creative  forces 
came  into  operation.  The  purer  spirit  in  the  hardened 
element  was  set  free.  On  the  first  day  of  Authhumbla's 
licking  a  man's  hair  came  out  of  the  ice,  the  second  day 
a  man's  head  and,  in  the  evening  of  the  third  day,  a 
complete  man  stood  forth,  strong,  large  and  handsome, 
the  father  of  the  gods,  Buri  by  name. 

In  the  meantime  the  giant  race  began  to  multiply. 
During  a  heavy  sleep  Ymir  fell  into  a  sweat.  A  man  and 
woman  grew  under  his  left  arm  and  his  feet  brought 
forth  a  son.  The  giants  increased  rapidly  and  furnished 
a  wife  to  Buri,  who  had  three  sons  from  his  marriage, 
Othen  (Wodan),  Honir,  Lothur.  Wodan  was  the  first- 
born and  became  the  father  of  all  other  gods. 

347 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

With  the  advent  of  the  gods  creation  proper  began. 
They  killed  Ymir,  threw  his  immense  body  into*  the  abyss 
which  was  completely  filled,  and  created  the  world  there. 
The  events  are  described  thus  in  the  Edda: 

From  Ymir's  giant  flesh 

The  earth  was  made ; 

The  billows  [the  seas  and  all  the  waters]  from  his  blood, 

The  mountains  from  his  bones, 

The  bushes  from  his  hair, 

And  the  heaven  from  his  skull; 


But  of  his  brains 

All  terrible  clouds  in  the  sky 

Were  made. 

The  earth  was  round  and  completely  encircled  by  the 
mighty  oceans.  Four  dwarfs,  north,  south,  east,  west, 
were  directed  by  the  gods  to  support  the  skull  and  keep 
it  in  place  above  the  world. 

Then  the  gods  assigned  courses  to  the  heavenly  bodies, 
which  were  originally  sparks  flying  irregularly  through 
space  from  Muspellsheim.  In  this  manner  night  and  day 
were  established  and  the  two  seasons,  summer  and  winter; 
were  determined  and  conditioned.  Grass  began  to  grow 
and  the  earth  to  prosper  and  bring  forth  fruit.  At  the 
horizon  in  the  far  north  was  placed  a  large  giant  in  the 
shape  of  an  eagle.  Every  time  he  flapped  his  huge  wings 
the  wind  blew  over  the  world.  The  gods  selected  the 
middle  of  the  world  for  themselves  and  called  it  Asgarth 
(the  home  of  the  Aesir,  Gods).  Between  earth  and 
Asgarth  they  spanned  a  wonderful  seven-colored  bridge, 
Bi frost, — mortals  call  it  the  rainbow. 

When  the  world  thus  had  been  made  habitable,  the 
gods  assembled  on  a  plain  in  Asgarth,  took  counsel,  made 
dwellings  for  themselves  and  constructed  all  kinds  of 
necessary  things.  This  finished  the  first  period  of  crea- 
tion and  now  followed  the  golden  age  or  "  millennium," 

348 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  TEUTONS 

when  happiness  and  bliss  were  the  daily  companions  of 
the  immortals. 

But  the  happiness  came  to  an  end,  a  disturbing  ele- 
ment arrived  among  the  gods.  When  Ymir  fell  the  giants 
were  all  drowned  in  his  blood,  except  Bergelmir,  who 
escaped  with  his  wife  in  a  skiff,  thus  keeping  alive  the 
race  of  giants.  From  these,  says  the  Edda, 

Came  to  the  High  Ones, 

Three  mighty  Giantesses  [the  Nornir,  fates], 

The  one  is  called  Urth, 

The  other  Verthandi, 

The  third  Skuld. 

The  lots  of  fortune, 

Life  and  death, 

The  fate  of  heroes, — 

Everything  comes  from  them. 

With  the  arrival  of  the  Norns  or  Fates  the  second 
period  of  creation  began.  The  activities  of  the  gods  were 
now  directed  to  definite  purposes  and  aims  and  their  lives 
and  energies  were  divided  between  a  constant  struggle 
against  the  powers  of  darkness  (the  giants)  and  the  main- 
tenance of  the  world  organization. 

Then  the  mighty  ones, 
The  holy  gods, 

Went  to  their  judgment  seats 
To  take  counsel. 

As  they  were  insufficient  unto  themselves  and  in  need 
bf  aid  they  gave  human  form  and  understanding  to  the 
Dvergar  (dwarfs),  who  came  into  existence  at  the. death 
of  Ymir.  The  dwarfs  (sometimes  called  black-elves  in 
contrast  to  the  elves  proper)  were  skillful  workers,  espe- 
cially in  metals,  and  many  of  the  treasures  in  Asgarth 
were  of  their  manufacture.  Later  they  also  became 
friendly  to  man  and  often  contributed  to  his  happiness. 
The  dwarfs  were  small  and  swarthy,  lived  under  the 
earth  and  were  really  "  children  of  darkness,"  although 
their  labors  were  for  the  benefit  of  gods  and  men. 

349 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

In  somewhat  of  a  contrast  to  them  stood  the  elves, 
"  airy  and  light,"  and  their  home  was  in  the  air.  Like 
the  dwarfs  they  were  propitious  to  the  inhabitants  of  the 
earth  and  of  Asgarth. 

One  day  after  the  creation  of  the  dwarfs  and  elves, 

Three  gods, 

Mighty  and  benevolent, 

Went  to  Midgarth, 

Found  on  the  ground 

Powerless 

Ask  [ash]  and  Embla  [elm] 

Without  destiny. 

They  possessed  neither  soul 

Nor  understanding, 

Neither  blood  nor  motion 

Nor  a  blooming  complexion. 

Othen  [Wodan]  gave  them  the  spirit, 

Honir,  understanding, 

Lothur  gave  them  blood  [life] 

And  a  rosy  complexion. 

Thereupon  the  mighty  ones, 
The  holy  gods,  again, 
Went  to  their  judgment  seats 
To  take  counsel. 

The  universe  was  now  divided  into  nine  districts  or 
worlds,  in  which  the  various  living  beings  were  to  reside. 
The  upper  part  of  the  world  the  gods  had  already  appro- 
priated for  themselves  and  in  the  centre  of  the  earth  they 
prepared  a  home  for  man,  Mithgarth  (middle  home). 
The  giants  were  assigned  to  the  regions  of  the  open  sea 
and  the  mountains,  these  places  being  called  Jbtunheim 
(home  of  giants)  or  Utgarth  (the  outer  dwelling).  A 
great  stream  divided  Jbtunheim  and  Asgarth.  Says  the 
Edda: 

Ifing  [doubt]  is  called  the  stream, 

Which  forever  divides 

The  home  of  giants  and  of  gods. 

It  shall  run  on 

Through  all  eternity. 

Never  ice  will  form  upon  it. 

This  stream  undoubtedly  refers  to  the  air. 

350 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  TEUTONS 

The  interior  of  the  earth,  as  we  have  seen,  was  the 
home  of  the  dwarfs,  Dvergaheim  or  Svartalfheim  (the 
home  of  the  black  elves),  and  the  space  in  the  air  imme- 
diately above  the  earth  was  designated  as  Alfheim  (the 
home  of  the  elves).  The  other  worlds  were:  Vanaheim 
near  the  seashore;  Muspellsheim  (already  mentioned  was 
the  upper  heaven) ;  Helheim  (home  of  Hel,  the  goddess 
of  death,  a  portion  of  Niflheim)  ;  and  Niflheim  (the  home 
of  cold  and  mist). 

A  curious  conception,  obscure  as  to  its  origin  and  diffi- 
cult to  explain,  was  the  tree  Yggdrasil  (probably  Wodan's 
horse).  It  finally  came  to  represent  the  universe  and 
with  its  destruction  the  world  would  come  to  an  end. 
Its  branches  spread  over  the  whole  earth  and  reached 
up  to  heaven.  It  drew  nourishment  from  three  roots, 
one  leading  to  the  spring  Hvergelmir  in  Niflheim  (or 
home  of  mists),  the  other  to  the  fountain  of  Mimer, 
in  Jotunheim  and  the  third  to  the  spring  of  Urth  ( Urthar- 
brunn),  in  Asgarth.  At  Urth's  spring  the  gods  assembled 
daily  for  consultation  and  the  pure  clear  waters  from  this 
fountain  gave  life  and  growth  to  the  tree;  but  at  the 
fountain  in  Niflheim  the  dragon  Nithhogg  (hate-cut) 
gnawed  at  its  root. 

Another  conception  that  has  given  rise  to  much  dis- 
cussion was  the  world  snake  (Mithgarthsorm) ,  thrown 
by  Wodan  into  the  sea,  where  it  grew  until  it  finally 
encircled  the  earth  and  bit  its  tail.  It  has  been  stated 
that  the  world-snake  idea  was  an  eastern  importation 
adopted  by  the  Norsemen.  However,  the  snake  cult  is 
of  such  universal  occurrence  as  to  suggest  individual 
origin  and  development  among  many  primitive  tribes. 
The  snake  or  serpent  must  have  been  of  peculiar  interest 
to  early  man  and  certainly  aroused  his  curiosity  and 
wonder.  It  is  different  from  all  other  animals  and  pro- 
pels itself  without  feet  equally  well  on  land  and  on 
water.  The  smaller  species  known  in  Scandinavia  can 

35i 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

appear  as  from  nowhere  and  disappear  quickly  in  holes 
and  crevices,  thus  baffling  its  pursuers. 

The  notion  of  a  monstrously  large  snake  inhabiting 
the  waters  and  encircling  the  earth  could  easily  have 
developed  in  Sweeten.  On  Lake  Vettern  the  waves  in 
connection  with  a  peculiar  light  combination  at  a  certain 
time  of  the  year  have  often  caused  people  to  think  that 
they  see  a  tremendous  serpent  coiling  its  gigantic  form 
across  the  water,  and  the  tales  from  trustworthy  sources 
puzzled  the  scientists  until  the  natural  phenomenon  was 
explained.  The  tales  of  the  "  sea-serpent "  or  of  a  great 
sea  monster  are  so  numerous  in  early  Scandinavian  litera- 
ture and  in  modern  tradition,  that  the  idea  must  have  been 
of  native  conception.  Olaus  Magnus  in  his  History 
(I555)>  21 :  24>  describes  the  monster  as  being  200  feet 
long  and  about  6l/2  feet  in  diameter.  "  It  even  disturbs 
ships,"  he  says,  "  rising  up  like  a  mast  and  sometimes 
snaps  some  of  the  men  from  the  deck." 

As  time  went  on  the  Aesir  or  gods  increased  by  birth 
and  by  adoption  from  the  Vanir  and  the  giants.  In  Scan- 
dinavian religion  they  were  twelve  (although  fourteen 
are  also  mentioned)  with  the  same  number  of  goddesses. 
The  number  among  the  other  Germanic  peoples  is  uncer- 
tain and  only  a  few  of  the  divinities  can  be  ascribed  as 
common  to  all  the  early  Teutons,  among  them  being 
Wodan,  Thor  and  Tyr. 

These  Teuton  gods  were  all-powerful,  but  they  were 
not  in  themselves  omnipotent,  for  they  were  limited  to 
time  and  space  and  subject  to  the  dictates  of  the  Norns 
(Fates),  the  hammer  of  Thor  was  essential  to  the  safety 
of  Asgarth,  and  the  eight- footed  horse  of  Othen  (Wo- 
dan) was  a  necessary  agent  for  swift  transition  from 
place  to  place ;  they  were  "  all-wise,"  but  they  were  not 
in  themselves  omniscient,  for  a  drink  in  Miner's  foun- 
tain of  wisdom  was  required  by  Wodan  and  two  ravens 
brought  him  news  of  all  human  and  world  events:  they 

352 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  TEUTONS 

were  not  "  all-good,"  for  they  were  partly  of  giant  origin 
and  hence  carried  the  germ  of  evil  in  their  souls;  meas- 
ured by  the  short  span  of  human  lives,  they  were  eternal 
as  they  lived  on  for  innumerable  ages,  but  they  were  not 
immortal,  for  their  power  was  destroyed  in  Ragna/rok 
and  the  majority  went  under  in  that  catastrophe. 

The  chief  divinity  was  Wodan  (Othen).  He  was 
the  first-born,  the  "  all-father,"  the  special  friend  of  man, 
the  incarnation  of  wisdom  and  the  protector  and  ruler 
of  the  universe.  He  was  the  inventor  of  runes,  and 
the  originator  of  poetry;  he  inspired  the  skalds  and 
taught  man  the  art  of  letters.  Wodan  was  one-eyed. 
He  desired  to  drink  from  the  spring  of  wisdom,  guarded 
by  Miner;  but  this  he  could  do  only  by  giving  away  one 
eye.  He  was  thought  of  as  tall  and  stately,  with  a  grave 
countenance,  aged  and  bearded.  On  his  arm  hung  a 
heavy  gold  ring,  draupnir  (dripping) ;  in  battle  or  on 
his  journeys  he  wore  "  a  mantle  of  blue  and  a  helmet 
of  gold  "  and  in  his  right  hand  he  carried  the  wondrous 
spear,  gungnir.  From  him  we  have  Wednesday,  Wodan's 
day.  Two  wolves  lay  at  his  feet  and  two  ravens,  Hugin 
(thought)  and  Muninn  (longing),  sat  on  his  shoulders. 
The  ravens  "  flew  out  over  the  world  every  morning  " 
and  returned  with  news  to  their  master  and  thus  Wodan 
knew  what  mortals  did.  His  horse  Sleipnir  (slippery), 
on  which  he  rushed  through  the  air,  was  the  noblest  and 
swiftest  of  animals,  with  eight  legs  and  with  runes  on 
his  teeth. 

Wodan  was  thrice  married.  His  first  wife  was  Jorth 
(the  earth),  who  became  the  mother  of  Thor,  the  eldest 
son  of  Wodan  and  the  strongest  inhabitant  of  Asgarth. 
Frigg  was  his  second  and  most  important  wife.  "  Nine 
maids  waited  upon  her  and  three  others  were  at  her 
service."  "  She  knows  the  destiny  of  all  beings,  although 
she  never  talks  of  such  things  herself."  She  was  the 
goddess  of  motherly  love,  the  protector  of  marriage  and 

23  353 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

the  guardian  of  women  and  their  domestic  duties.  Friday 
is  called  after  her  and  she  was  highly  honored,  especially 
in  Sweden.  Her  nine  maids  were  engaged  in  nine  occu- 
pations in  which  she  took  interest  and  which  she  super- 
vised and  regarded  as  her  own.  Thus  Sjofn  lighted  the 
flame  of  love  in  human  breasts;  Var  guarded  over  the 
promises  and  oaths  given  by  men  and  women  and  pun- 
ished all  those  who  broke  their  troths.  Rindr,  who  was 
white  as  the  sun,  became  Wodan's  third  wife,  and  only 
with  great  difficulty  did  he  wrin  her. 

The  wives  of  Wodan  apparently  represented  the  earth 
in  various  aspects  and  thus  seem  to  indicate  that  Wodan 
was  originally  a  sun  or  sky  god.  Jorth  (earth)  was  the 
uncultivated  earth  in  its  primitive  state,  Frigg  denoted 
the  cultivated  fruitful  earth,  and  Rindr  represented  the 
earth  in  the  frozen  wintry  condition  of  the  north,  before 
the  spring  sun  had  softened  her  hardened  surface. 

The  most  beloved  of  the  gods,  especially  in  Scandi- 
navia, was  Thor,  the  thunder er,  after  whom  Thursday 
was  named.  He  was  broad-shouldered  and  tall,  red- 
haired  and  fierce-eyed.  He  possessed  three  treasures  of 
inestimable  worth:  the  hammer  Mjolnir  (the  crusher),  a 
pair  of  iron  gloves,  always  worn  in  battle,  and  a  belt 
which  redoubled  his  tremendous  power,  every  time  he 
buckled  it  on.  As  a  rule  he  was  gentle,  kind-hearted  and 
peaceful.  But,  when  his  anger  was  aroused,  he  grew 
fierce  and  terrible  and  his  eyes  flamed  like  bolts  of  thun- 
der. He  was  the  synonym  of  openness  and  the  incar- 
nation of  truth,  "  the  god  who  never  uttered  a  false- 
hood." His  hammer  was  the  symbol  of  faithfulness,  the 
sign  of  the  hammer  (really  a  cross)  was  a  protection 
against  all  evil  things.  He  was  the  impersonation  of 
strength,  the  undaunted  defender  of  gods  and  men  against 
evil  powers.  The  cultivators  of  the  soil  called  for  his 
blessings  and  warriors  prayed  for  his  aid.  He  was 

354 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  TEUTONS 

engaged  in  continuous  struggles  with  the  giants,  whom  he 
always  conquered  with  his  mighty  hammer  that  never 
missed  its  mark  and  always  returned  to  the  hand  of  its 
owner.  In  these  fights  lightning  and  thunder  shook  the 
world.  Sparks  from  the  hammer,  as  it  crushed  the  hard, 
stony  heads  of  the  giants,  were  the  ragged  streaks  of 
lightning  which  crossed  the  heavens  during  thunder- 
storms. Thor  rode  in  a  chariot  drawn  by  two  goats — 
the  rumbling  of  thunder  was  the  rattle  of  the  chariot 
wheels — and  he  was  generally  followed  on  his  tours  by 
two  servants.  Sif  was  his  wife,  the  goddess  of  fruit- 
fulness  and  plenty,  and  he  had  three  sons,  Mothi  (the 
courageous),  Magni  (the  strong),  and  Ullr  (O.  E.  Wul- 
dor,  glory).  He  is  the  most  characteristic  god  in  Norse 
religion  and  his  life  and  activities  were  the  subject  of 
numerous  tales. 

Once  his  hammer  was  stolen,  as  he  slept.  Angry 
indeed  was  Thor  when  he  discovered  his  loss.  Loki  was 
at  once  despatched  to  find  and  return  the  invaluable 
weapon.  But  the  giant  Thrym,  who  had  it  hidden  eight 
miles  below  the  earth,  would  return  it  only  on  condition 
that  Freyja,  the  goddess  of  love,  became  his  wife.  Freyja, 
however,  indignantly  refused  the  proposal  and  trembled 
in  her  anger,  so  that  the  foundations  of  the  earth  shook. 
The  gods  took  counsel,  the  safety  of  the  universe  being 
in  the  balance,  for  without  Thor's  hammer  the  gods  could 
not  maintain  their  power.  It  was  suggested  that  Thor 
himself  should  dress  in  bridal  clothes  and  go  to  the  giant 
disguised  as  Freyja.  Thor  at  first  refused,  but  there 
was  no  escape,  the  hammer  had  to  be  recovered.  Accord- 
ingly Thor  was  dressed  for  marriage,  his  goats  were 
hitched  to  the  chariot  and  Loki  followed  as  bridal  maid. 
Thunder  and  lightning  raged  violently  on  this  journey, 
"  the  earth  stood  in  flames,"  for  Thor  was  angry  and 
drove  like  mad. 

355 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

A  great  feast  was  prepared  in  the  home  of  the  giant. 

One  ox  Thor  ate, 
Eight  salmon 
And  all  the  delicacies 
For  the  woman  intended. 

He  also  "  drank  three  barrels  of  mead."  In  astonishment 
then  spoke  Thrym : 

Where  hast  thou  seen  such  a  hungry  bride? 
I  ne'er  saw  a  bride 
Eat  so  much, 
And  never  a  maid 
Drink  more  mead. 

The  crafty  maid  (Loki),  however,  put  the  giant  off 
his  guard.  "  The  poor  maiden,"  said  he,  "  has  not  eaten 
for  eight  days,  out  of  longing  for  this  place/'  There- 
upon Thrym  tried  to  kiss  his  bride,  "  but  sprang  back 
the  length  of  the  hall,"  exclaiming, 

Why  are  Freyja's  eyes  so  wild? 
From  her  eyes  it  seems 
That  fire  doth  burn. 

"  Oh,"  answered  Loki,  "  the  poor  girl  has  not  slept  for 
eight  nights,  so  much  did  she  long  for  Jotunheim." 

Then  said  Thrym, 

The  king  of  giants, 

Bring  in  the  hammer 

My  bride  to  hallow ; 

Place  Mjolnir  [the  hammer] 

In  the  maid's  lap, 

Wed  us  together 

With  the  hand  of  Var.» 

But  now  Thor  came  into  his  own  again.  He  grasped  the 
short  handle  of  his  trusty  hammer  and  slew  Thrym  and 
"  all  that  race  of  giants."  The  world  was  saved  and 
Thor  returned  in  triumph  to  his  hall  in  Asgarth. 

Another   god  common   to   all   Teutonic  tribes   was 

'The  goddess  of  marriage,  servant  maid  of  Frigg. 

356 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  TEUTONS 

Tyr3  (O.  E.  Tiw,  O.  H.  G.  Ziu,  the  high,  the  glorious. 
Cp.  Lat.  deus,  Gr.  Zeus)  from  whom  we  have  Tuesday. 
In  the  beginning  he  was  preeminently  the  god  of  war, 
and  he  was  the  personification  of  bravery  and  courage. 
References  to  him  are  found  in  Roman  and  other  early 
writers  and  as  late  as  the  Edda  he  is  still  described  as  the 
god  of  war,  although  he  at  that  time  had  been  largely 
superseded  by  Thor  and  Wodan.  Tyr  alone  had  the 
courage  to  feed  the  Fenris-wolf,  a  huge  monster  brought 
up  in  Asgarth.  When  the  gods  perceived  that  the  wolf 
was  growing  dangerous  through  his  strength  and  ferocity, 
they  decided  to  bind  him.  But  the  wolf  would  not  consent 
to  this,  unless  one  of  the  immortals  placed  a  hand  in 
his  mouth,  as  a  pledge  that  there  was  no  deceit  in  the 
matter.  None  of  the  gods  seemed  disposed  to  risk  a  limb. 
But  when  Tyr  heard  of  the  conditions,  he  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  put  his  hand  between  the  monster's  jaws.  How- 
ever, as  the  wolf  discovered  that  he  had  been  tricked,  he 
bit  off  the  hand  of  Tyr  and  therefore  the  god  had  but 
one  hand. 

Loki4  occupied  a  large  space  in  Scandinavian  re- 
ligion; whether  he  appeared  among  all  the  other  Ger- 
manic tribes  is  beyond  proof.  Originally  he  seems  to 
have  been  "a  good  being,"  a  member  of  the  pantheon; 
some  have  even  tried  to  make  him  a  brother  of  Wodan 
and  one  of  the  three  gods  who  created  man.  Gradually 
he  drifted  away  from  the  gods  and  came  to  be  the  repre- 
sentation of  evil,  the  embryo  of  a  devil.  He  often  caused 
worry  and  trouble  among  the  immortals,  but  he  also 
helped  them  out  of  many  difficulties,  as  for  instance  by 
the  recovery  of  the  hammer,  and  at  times  gave  valuable 
advice.  Finally,  however,  his  wickedness  and  overbearing 
became  intolerable.  He  was  captured,  dragged  into  a 

8  He  was  the  son  of  Wodan. 

*The  account  of  Loki,  by  Professor  Anderson  in  Norse  My- 
thology, p.  371,  is  quite  erroneous. 

357 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

cavern  and  tied  on  three  sharp-pointed  rocks.  Above 
his  head  a  poisonous  serpent  was  suspended  in  such  a 
manner  that  the  venom  fell  into  his  face.  But  his  faithful 
wife  Sigyn  sat  at  his  side  and  collected  the  deadly  drops 
in  a  cup.  When  the  cup  was  full  and  she  went  away 
to  empty  it,  the  venom  fell  upon  Loki,  who  then  shrieked 
with  horror  and  twisted  his  body  so  violently  that  the 
whole  earth  shook — thus  the  earthquake  was  produced. 
There  Loki  will  lie  until  Ragnarok  (the  destruction  of 
the  world). 

Other  gods,  especially  in  Scandinavian  religion,  some 
of  whom  occupied  a  significant  position  in  the  pantheon, 
were  Balder,  the  god  of  purity  and  light;  Forsete,  the 
god  of  justice;  Brage,  the  god  of  poetry  and  oratory; 
Heimdallr,  the  guardian  of  Asgarth  and  the  founder  of 
civilization  among  men;  Freyj,  the  god  of  fertility,  the 
ruler  of  rain  and  sunshine. 

Some  of  the  most  important  of  the  goddesses  besides 
those  already  mentioned  (the  wives  of  Wodan:  Jorth, 
Frigg,  with  her  maids,  and  Rindr;  Sif,  the  wife  of  Thor, 
and  Sigyn,  the  wife  of  Loki)  were  Froja,  Gefjon,  Fulla, 
Ithun  and  Nanna.  They  were  the  counterparts  of  the 
gods  and  the  guardians  of  womanhood. 

The  Vanir  were  gods,  but  of  a  lower  order  than  the 
Aesir  (Wodan,  Thor,  Tyr,  etc.)  and  of  different  and 
apparently  unknown  origin.  Their  home  was  Vanaheim, 
the  lakes  and  rivers  and  the  waters  of  the  sea  near  the 
coasts.  In  the  beginning  the  Vanir  were  the  cause  of 
war  with  the  gods,  but  peace  was  made,  hostages  were 
exchanged  and  a  mutual  good-will  was  established  and 
maintained  between  them  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole 
world. 

The  giants  were  the  powers  of  evil  in  general;  the 
wild  nature,  the  cold  winds,  storms  and  all  destructive 
forces  in  the  world  were  of  their  making.  They  were 

358 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  TEUTONS 

of  two  kinds,  the  Thursar  and  the  Jotnar  (giants  proper). 
They  were  generally  described  as  ugly,  ungainly  and 
fierce;  their  heads  were  often  of  stone  or  as  hard  as 
stone  and  their  stature  was  immense.  They  were  the 
enemies  of  the  gods  and  men  and  they  were  nearly  an 
equal  match  for  the  inhabitants  of  Asgarth.  But  indi- 
viduals among  them  were  often  beautiful,  and  friendly 
disposed  towards  man  "  and  the  sons  of  Wodan." 

The  Thursar  were  the  rulers  of  the  wild  open  sea,  over 
which  Ran  was  queen,  while  the  Jotnar  were  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  mountains  and  the  barren  parts  of  the  earth. 

Besides  the  giants,  dwarfs,  elves,  Vanir  and  gods 
proper,  there  were  several  other  beings,  which  played  an 
important  part  in  early  Teutonic  religion,  and  which  in 
some  cases  have  survived  in  the  folk  belief  down  to  the 
present  day. 

In  the  Saga  of  Hakon  the  Good  we  read :  "  It  was 
the  custom  in  olden  times,  when  sacrifice  was  about  to 
be  made,  that  the  freemen  should  go  to  the  temple  with 
the  supplies  they  would  need  while  the  feast  of  sacrifice 
lasted.  They  were  all  to  have  ale.  All  kinds  of  small 
domestic  animals  and  horses  were  slain,  and  all  the  blood 
that  came  from  them  was  called  hlaut  and  was  preserved 
in  so-called  hlaut-bowls.  With  the  hlaut-teins,  which  were 
made  in  the  fashion  of  a  sprinkler  broom,  all  the  stalls  and 
the  inside  and  outside  walls  of  the  temple  should  be 
reddened,  and  the  people  should  be  sprinkled.  The 
meat  was  boiled  for  the  feasting  of  those  present. 
In  the  middle  of  the  floor  there  were  fires,  above 
which  hung  caldrons,  and  the  drinking  cups  should  be 
carried  around  the  fire.  The  one  who  made  the  feast 
and  was  the  chieftain  should  bless  the  cups  and  all  the 
sacrificial  food.  First  they  should  drink  a  cup  to  Othen 
(Wodan)  for  victory  and  the  dominion  of  their  king, 

359 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

then  to  Njorth 5  and  Freyj  6  for  prosperity  and  peace. 
Thereupon  many  drank  the  cup  of  Brage.7  They  also 
used  to  drink  their  cups  to  their  dead  kinsmen,  who  had 
distinguished  themselves."  This  description  of  a  public 
sacrifice-feast  refers  to  late  historic  times,  but  contains 
many  primitive  elements. 

The  early  Teutons  were  plain  materialists  and  had 
no  hankering  for  a  life  beyond  the  grave,  but  they  were 
extremely  religious  and  they  never  began  an  important 
undertaking  of  any  kind  in  war  or  peace  without  offer- 
ings and  prayers  to  the  gods.  The  object  to  be  sacrificed 
was  determined  by  the  importance  of  the  object  to  be 
obtained.  Small  animals,  food,  drink,  etc.,  would  be 
offered  to  the  gods  and  the  other  spirits  on  ordinary  occa- 
sions or  when  ordinary  things  were  requested.  Large 
animals,  especially  horses,  were  offered  on  public  occa- 
sions, in  emergencies  or  in  trying  times;  in  stress  and 
danger  or  when  victories  were  obtained  or  called  for, 
human  beings  were  often  sacrificed.  Then  kings  even 
offered  up  their  sons  and  we  have  records  of  a  people 
sacrificing  their  king  to  propitiate  the  gods.  Besides 
"  occasional  sacrifices  "  the  Teutons  celebrated  three  great 
festivals,  at  which  large  offerings  were  made.  The  first 
of  these  was  in  the  middle  of  October,  the  Germanic 
thanksgiving;  the  second  took  place  in  the  beginning 
of  January,  the  Yule  time ;  and  the  third  fell  towards  the 
middle  of  April,  at  which  sacrifices  were  made  especially 
to  Wodan,  in  order  to  obtain  his  blessings  for  victories 
and  successful  expeditions. 

Prayers  to  the  gods  were  also  common,  but  it  was  a 
general  principle  not  to  sacrifice  or  pray  to  excess.  In 
prayer  the  suppliant  turned  towards  the  north,  and  some- 

8  The  god  of  the  wind  and  fishing. 

"The  god  of  fertility  and  the  ruler  of  the  rain  and  sunshine. 

T  The  god  of  poetry. 

360 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  TEUTONS 

times  kneeled  or  threw  himself  on  the  ground  before 
divine  images. 

Magic  or  sorcery  in  which  the  runes  played  an  impor- 
tant part  was  common  and  even  the  gods  made  use  of  it. 
Divination  was  also  employed. 

Temples  were  apparently  built  by  nearly  all  Germanic 
tribes  in  the  early  centuries  of  our  era;  but  we  have 
definite  information  of  such  only  in  the  north.  They 
were  built  in  forests,  which  were  the  original  places  of 
worship,  and  which  continued  to  be  held  in  reverence,  and 
trees  were  often  sacred  among  the  people.  The  temples 
of  Scandinavia  were  of  two  kinds,  one  round  (the  earlier 
type)  and  another  of  oblong  shape  with  a  semicircular 
prolongation  which  was  separated  from  the  former  by  a 
wall.  The  prolongation  was  a  remnant  of  the  earlier  form 
to  which  was  added  the  feast  hall  for  the  convenience  of 
the  people. 

They  were  surrounded  by  an  enclosure  and  looked 
after  by  a  priest,  king  or  chieftain,  as  the  case  might  be. 
Priests  without  other  office  were  not  original  among  the 
Teutons,  but  the  priesthood  was  fully  developed  in  the 
Viking  period.  Images  of  the  gods  were  general.  They 
were  of  wood,  sometimes  made  of  stone  or  metal,  and 
placed  on  a  kind  of  pedestal,  in  the  semicircular  prolonga- 
tion, mentioned  above,  or  even  in  the  open. 

The  earliest  conception  about  the  "  homes  of  the 
dead  "  was  Helheim,  a  misty,  cold  and  horrifying  region, 
where  dragons  and  other  hideous  monsters'  terrified  the 
arrivals  from  the  upper  world.  This-  did  not  satisfy  later 
generations,  who  demanded  a  more, cheerful  abode  "  after 
their  labors."  Accordingly,  the  idea  of  Valhall  grew  up. 

Valhall  was  fhe  largest  and  post  gorgeous  hall  in 
Asgarth,  where  Wodan  received  the  heroes  who  had  fallen 
bravely  in  battle.  It  was  covered  with  shields  and  lighted 
by  sparkling  swords.  It  had  640  doors,  through  each 
one  of  which  960  champions  could  march  abreast.  In 

361 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

this  hall  the  chosen  heroes  led  a  life  of  activity  and  happi- 
ness. Every  morning  they  put  on  their  armor  and  marched 
out  to  a  plain,  where  they  engaged  in  mortal  combat  and 
slew  one  another.  However,  when  mealtime  came  they 
all  arose  again  and  returned  to  Valhall,  as  the  best  of 
friends,  and  partook  of  the  boar  Saehrimnir,  and  the 
heavenly  mead  served  by  the  Valkyrior,  the  female  ser- 
vants of  Wodan.  This  was  repeated  in  eternal  monotony. 
In  the  early  morning  the  boar  was  ready  to  be  made 
into  a  new  meal,  as  he  came  to  life  again  every  evening 
as  fat  and  healthy  as  ever.  Not  all  fallen  heroes  could 
enter  Valhall:  only  those  whose  lives  were  noble  and 
spotless  were  worthy  of  such  honor.  These  were  se- 
lected by  the  Valkyrior,  and  brought  in  triumph  into  the 
great  hall  before  the  god  of  battle. 

The  Teutons  believed  that  the  material  world  with 
its  inhabitants,  including  the  gods,  would  sometime  come 
to  an  end.  This  catastrophe  was  to  be  preceded  by  long 
periods  of  continuous  winter  and  by  disturbances  in 
nature  and  by  degeneration  in  the  moral  world.  Then 
comes  the  fatal  hour.  The  gods  are  lined  up  in  battle 
array  for  their  last  mighty  struggle.  They  are  met  by 
the  giants  and  by  all  the  forces  of  darkness.  The  world 
shakes  in  its  foundations.  The  ash  Yggdrasil  perishes. 

The  sun  darkens, 

The  earth  sinks  into  the  sea. 

The  bright  stars 

Are  hurled  from  heaven. 

Fire  roars 

Against  flaming  fire; 

High  play  the  flames 

Against  the  very  sky. 

But  from  the  ruins  a  new  world  shall  arise  "  and 
prosper  forever."  New  gods  will  appear  and  a  new  race 
of  men  will  inhabit  the  new  earth.  Evil  is  banished 
eternally  and  goodness  and  virtue  shall  live  perpetually 
among  mortals  and  gods. 

362 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  TEUTONS 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  Edda,  translated  by  B.  Thorpe  (1866),  G.  Vigfusson  in  his 
Corpus  poeticum  boreale  (1883),  B.  Olive  Bray,  i-ii  (1908). 

ANDERSON,  RASMUS  B. :   Norse  Mythology  (Chicago,  1901). 

DE  LA  SAUSSAYE,  P.  D.  Chantepie:  The  Religion  of  the  Teutons 
(Boston  and  London,  1902). 

HELM,  KARL:  Altgermanische  Religionsgeschichte  (1913). 

GOLTHER,  WOLFGANG:  Handbuch  der  germanischen  Mythologie  (Leip- 
zig, 1895)- 

GRIMM,  JACOB:  Deutsche  Mythologie,  i-iii  (4th  ed.,  Berlin,  1875-78). 

GUMMERE,  F.  B. :  Germanic  Origins  (New  York,  1892). 

MEYER,  E.  H. :    Germanische  Mythologie  (Berlin,  1891). 

MEYER,  E.  H. :  Mythologie  der  Germanen   (Strassburg,   1902). 

MEYER,  R.  M. :  Altgermanische  Religionsgeschichte   (1910). 

MOGK,  E. :  Germanische  Mythologie  (2d  ed.,  Strassburg,  1898). 

PETERSEN,  HENRY:  On  Nordboernes  Gudedyrkelse  og  Gudetro  i 
Hedenold  (Copenhagen,  1876).  A  rather  poor  German  transla- 
tion (Ober  den  Gottesdienst,  etc.)  was  published  at  Gardelegen 
in  1882. 

RYDBERG,  VIKTOR:  Undersokningar  i  germansk  mythologi,  i-ii 
(Stockholm,  1886,  1889).  Vol.  i  was  translated  by  R.  B.  Ander- 
son and  published  in  London  in  1889. 

THORPE,  BENJAMIN:    Northern  Mythology,  i-iii   (1851-1852). 


363 


CHAPTER  XIII 

EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 
BY  WILLIAM  ROMAINE  NEWBOLD, 

I  MUST  ask  you  at  the  outset  to  remember  that  I  can 
do  no  more  within  the  narrow  compass  of  a  single  lecture 
than  sketch  the  broad  outlines  of  a  picture,  omitting 
details  which  would  modify  to  some  extent  the  general 
impression  of  the  whole  and  which  strict  accuracy  would 
require  me  to  introduce. 

One  may  recognize  in  the  development  of  early  Chris- 
tianity three  important  stages :  first,  the  Gospel  preached 
by  Jesus ;  second,  the  Gospel  preached,  for  the  most  part 
to  the  Jews,  by  the  Apostles  and  other  early  converts ; 
third,  the  form  which  this  Gospel  assumed  after  it  had 
been  preached  by  Paul,  Peter  and  others  among  the  Gen- 
tiles and  had  been  subjected  to  the  influences  of  Hellenistic 
culture. 

THE  GOSPEL  OF  JESUS 

The  Gospel  which  Jesus  preached  was  very  simple, 
both  in  substance  and  in  form.  Its  burden  was  that  of 
the  preaching  of  John  the  Baptist — Repent:  for  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  is  at  hand  (Mt.  4:17).  By  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven  or  the  Kingdom  of  God  Jesus  meant  any  sphere 
in  which  the  will  of  God  is  obeyed.  Thus,  heaven  be- 
longs to  the  Kingdom  of  God;  so  also  does  earth  in  so 
far  as  God's  will  is  obeyed  on  earth.  And,  in  a  slightly 
different  sense,  the  heart  of  every  man  who  obeys  God's 
will  belongs  to  the  Kingdom  of  God — the  kingdom  of 
God  is  within  you  (Luke  17:21).  Just  what  Jesus 
meant  by  His  declaration  that  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom 
is  at  hand  is  difficult  to  determine.  At  least  two  con- 
ceptions of  it  can  be  distinguished  in  the  Gospels.  Ac- 

364 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

cording  to  one,  which  is  virtually  identical  with  a  preva- 
lent Jewish  conception,  Jesus,  as  the  Messiah,  will  return 
to  earth  at  some  time  in  the  future  with  power  and  glory 
and  institute  Messiah's  kingdom.  According  to  the  other, 
the  Kingdom  comes  for  each  man  when  he  begins  to  do 
God's  will.  Hence  it  was  being  initiated  by  Jesus'  min- 
istry, and  its  coming  was  to  be  prolonged  throughout  the 
period  during  which  the  mustard  seed  which  He  had  come 
to  plant  would  be  growing  up,  the  leaven  which  He  was 
to  introduce  into  the  world  would  be  leavening  the  whole 
lump. 

Thus  repentance  and  a  change  of  heart  by  which  man's 
will  comes  into  conformity  with  God's  will  is  the  sole 
and  sufficient  condition  of  admission  to  the  Kingdom 
of  God. 

Jesus  also  declared  Himself  authorized  to  reveal  the 
nature  of  God,  in  so  far  as  it  concerns  His  creatures. 
God's  attitude  towards  them  is  that  of  love,  like  that  of  a 
father  towards  his  children.  And  His  will,  therefore,  is 
that  men  should  try  to  become  like  Him  and  should  be 
actuated  in  all  their  conduct  by  no  other  motive  than 
love  to  God  and  to  their  fellow-men. 

Jesus  frequently  declared  that  the  fate  of  those  who 
fail  to  enter  the  Kingdom  will  be  eternal  death,  but  He 
never  explains  precisely  what  He  meant  by  it.  It  is  obvi- 
ous however  that  he  conceived  it  to  be  a  very  terrible 
fate  indeed;  so  terrible  that  it  was  the  only  reason  for 
His  mission — the  Son  of  Man  is  come,  He  said,  to  seek 
and  to  save  that  which  was  lost  (Luke  19:19).  And  the 
eternal  life  which  is  to  be  the  reward  of  those  who  do 
enter  the  Kingdom  is  in  like  manner  left  unexplained.  It 
certainly  extends  beyond  the  grave,  and  Jesus  frequently 
intimates  that  He  knows  just  what  it  is,  but  He  never 
dwells  upon  it.  It  would  seem  that  He  feV,  and  wished 
His  disciples  to  feel,  that  membership  in  th-i  Kingdom  is 
the  only  thing  of  importance  and  that  the  change  of  scene 

365 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

occasioned  by  death  should  not  be  an  object  of  too  much 
interest  and  concern. 

Jesus  preached  this  Gospel  with  authority.  He  de- 
clared that  He  and  He  alone  knew  the  nature  of  God  and 
was  able  to  reveal  it  to  men.  He  called  Himself  "  Son  of 
God  "  and  also  "  Son  of  Man,"  a  title  which  probably  had 
much  the  same  meaning  to  His  hearers,  for  in  the  Book 
of  Enoch,  which  was  written  about  a  hundred  years 
before  Jesus'  time  and  certainly  was  known  to  some  of 
the  writers  of  the  New  Testament,  the  "  Son  of  Man  " 
is  a  celestial  being  who  dwells  in  heaven  with  God  await- 
ing the  time  when  he  is  to  be  sent  down  to  earth  as  the 
Messiah.  Jesus  also  forgave  sins  on  His  own  authority. 
He  acknowledged  the  inspiration  of  the  Old  Testament, 
yet  He  dared  on  His  own  authority  to  amend  the  sacred 
Law  of  Moses — Ye  have  heard  that  it  was  said  by  them 
of  old  time,  .  .  .  but  I  say  unto  you. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  these  extraordinary  claims  for 
Himself,  He  never  made  Himself  a  part  of  His  Gospel. 
He  demanded  that  men  should  accept  His  message  as 
authoritative,  but  He  never  demanded  that  they  should 
accept  even  His  own  statements  about  Himself  as  part 
of  the  message.  Even  in  the  Gospel  of  John,  where 
Jesus  says  more  about  Himself  than  in  all  the  others 
put  together,  it  is  always  the  acceptance  of  His  authority 
as  the  messenger  of  God  that  He  has  in  mind,  not  of  any 
views  about  Himself.  Indeed,  He  explicitly  warns  His 
hearers  that  no  mere  paying  of  reverence  to  Himself  can 
be  offered  as  a  substitute  for  acceptance  of  His  Gospel— 
Not  every  one  that  saith  unto  me,  Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  heaven;  but  he  that  doeth  the  will 
of  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven  (Mt.  7 :  21 ). 

This  Gospel  was  not  new.  Every  point  in  it,  except 
the  imminence  of  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom  and  Jesus' 
own  connection  with  it,  had  been  taught  by  the  prophets 
and  was  ever  taught  in  Jesus'  time  by  the  more  spirituallv 

366 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

minded  among  the  Rabbis.  Yet  it  impressed  His  hearers 
as  startlingly  new  and  dangerously  revolutionary.  The 
popular  religion  conceived  of  God,  not  as  loving,  but  as 
stern,  jealous  and  irascible.  Salvation  was  supposed  to 
depend,  not  upon  repentance  and  reformation,  but  upon 
the  faithful  observance  of  the  contract  made  by  God  with 
Moses  by  which  He  had  pledged  Himself  to  give  the  Jews 
the  land  of  Palestine  and  other  blessings  in  consideration 
of  performance  of  the  Law.  Religion,  therefore,  con- 
sisted chiefly  in  obedience  to  the  Law,  and  especially  to 
the  ritual  Law.  This  conception  of  religion  Jesus  sternly 
denounced. 

THE  GOSPEL  PREACHED  BY  THE  APOSTLES 

Turning  now  to  the  Gospel  preached  by  the  Apostles : 
it  included  all  that  Jesus  had  taught,  but  it  contained  also 
other  principles  which  Jesus  had  not  publicly  taught. 

The  Apostles  proclaimed  the  resurrection  of  Jesus, 
of  which  they  declared  themselves  the  witnesses.  They 
laid  great  emphasis  upon  it  as  affording  conclusive  proof, 
first,  of  God's  approval  o-f  Jesus'  life  and  work,  and, 
second,  of  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  the  body, 
already  widely  accepted  among  the  Jews.  Thus  that  doc- 
trine became  a  part  of  the  Christian  religion. 

The  Apostles  also  preached  Jesus  as  the  Messiah. 
Jesus  had  Himself  admitted  that  He  was  the  person  fore- 
told by  the  prophets  and  usually  called  the  Messiah,  but 
He  had  kept  the  fact  in  the  background  until  just  before 
His  death.  His  disciples  made  it  one  of  the  foremost 
principles  of  their  religion.  In  this  way  such  of  the 
Jewish  ideas  of  the  person  and  work  of  the  Messiah  as 
were  not  obviously  incompatible  with  the  facts  of  Jesus' 
life  were  introduced  into  the  minds  of  Christians  and 
exerted  considerable  influence  upon  later  speculation. 

The  Apostles  also  preached  Jesus  as  the  Saviour  of 
men  from  sin  and  the  consequences  of  sin.  This  is  beyond 

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RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

all  comparison  the  most  important  of  the  elements  which 
distinguish  the  Gospel  of  the  Apostles  from  the  Gospel 
of  Jesus.  Not  that  they  invented  it  themselves.  Even 
the  Synoptic  Gospels  put  it  beyond  question  that  Jesus 
conceived  of  Himself  as  a  Saviour,  and  there  is  no  rea- 
son to  doubt  that  John  is  true  to  the  facts  when  he  repre- 
sents Jesus  as  at  times  speaking  of  the  subject  at  greater 
length  than  is  reported  in  the  Synoptics.  But,  certainly, 
if  Jesus  had  made  it  a  prominent  feature  of  His  public 
teaching,  which  is  the  impression  given  by  John's  Gospel 
taken  alone,  it  could  not  have  been  so  consistently  ignored 
by  the  eye-witnesses  whose  stories  have  been  incorporated 
into  our  Synoptics. 

It  is  not  hard  to  understand  why  the  Apostles  attached 
such  importance  to  Jesus'  resurrection,  for  that  was  to 
their  minds  the  final  proof  of  His  authority,  nor  why  they 
thought  of  Him  chiefly  as  the  Messiah,  io'r  the  idea  was 
a  familiar  one  to  every  Jewish  mind  and  fraught  with^ 
hope  as  no  other.  But  what  gave  them  this  new  realiza- 
tion of  His  power  as  a  Saviour  from  sin? 

In  the  answer  to  this  question  is  to  be  found  the  key 
to  the  comprehension  of  primitive  Christianity,  and  not 
only  of  primitive  Christianity  but  of  Christianity  as  one 
of  the  world  religions.  For  if  there  is  any  single  trait 
which  distinguishes  Christianity  from  all  other  religions 
it  is  its  proclamation  of  Jesus  as  a  Saviour.  Other  re- 
ligions have  their  prophets  and  teachers,  but  Christianity 
alone  proclaims  its  Founder  as  a  Saviour.  Myriads  of 
men  have  avowed  their  belief  in  this  doctrine,  and  al- 
though by  far  the  greater  number  have  meant  no  more 
by  their  avowal  than  formal  assent  to  a  more  or  less  well 
understood  statement,  there  remains  a  countless  multitude 
for  whom  it  has  been  the  expression  of  an  experience  so 
profound,  so  compelling,  that  no  persuasion,  no  argument, 
no  threats,  not  even  torture  and  death,  could  avail  to 
shake  their  assurance  of  its  reality. 

368 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

As  the  theory  which  I  am  putting  before  you  is  prob- 
ably novel  to  many  of  you,  I  must  dwell  briefly  upon  the 
facts  upon  which  it  is  based. 

Religious  people,  if  they  can  be  persuaded  to  talk  on 
the  subject,  will  often  say  that  they  are  aware  of  a  new 
kind  of  consciousness  within  their  souls,  a  kind  of  which 
they  knew  nothing  before  they  became  religious,  and  this 
they  call  "  the  spiritual  life."  If  they  are  Christians, 
they  usually  attribute  the  initiation  of  the  spiritual  life 
to  Jesus.  Now,  just  what  do  they  mean  by  this  "  spiritual 
life  "  and  what  reason  have  they  for  ascribing  it  to  Jesus? 

There  are  many  manifestations  of  the  spiritual  life 
and  I  cannot  now  attempt  to  describe  them  at  length.  A 
good  survey  of  the  more  important  will  be  found  in  Prof. 
William  James'  famous  book,  The  Varieties  of  Religious 
Experience.  It  will  be  enough  for  my  present  purpose 
if  I  call  your  attention  to  two  of  the  more  common  types. 

The  most  characteristic  trait,  perhaps,  is  a  genuine 
distaste  for  all  that  is  recognized  as  sin,  even  for  those 
sins  which  had  formerly  seemed  most  attractive.  Often 
the  attraction  disappears  and  is  replaced  by  repulsion. 
More  often,  probably,  it  still  survives  and  wages  warfare 
with  the  new  repugnance. 

The  second  trait  is  one  of  which  there  are  many  de- 
scriptions, yet  all  agree  that  the  experience  is  essentially 
indescribable.  It  is  felt  as  an  inflow  into  the  deepest 
depths  of  one's  interior  self  of  a  mighty  stream  of  con- 
scious life,  independent  of  and  foreign  to  one's  self  and 
utterly  unlike  anything  ever  before  experienced.  It  is 
usually  described  in  terms  derived  from  the  emotions — 
it  is  a  "  love "  that  embraces  all  sentient  beings  and 
even  inanimate  objects ;  it  is  a  "  joy  "  beside  which  all 
the  pleasures  of  life  pale  into  nothingness ;  it  is  a  "  peace  " 
so  profound  that  no  earthly  vicissitudes  can  trouble  it. 
But  it  has  an  intensity,  a  vividness,  possessed  by  no 
emotion  and  superior  to  that  of  any  sensation,  a  "  burning 
24  369 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

sweetness,"  which  poor  fallen  human  nature  finds  all  but 
insupportable.  To  the  man  who  has  had  such  an  experi- 
ence his  former  life  seems  like  an  arid  waste,  a  living 
death,  nay,  like  death  itself. 

These  experiences  and  others  of  the  same  general 
type  are  not  peculiar  to  Christianity;  they  are  found  to 
some  extent  in  other  religions.  But  Christians  usually 
ascribe  them  to  Jesus,  or  to  the  Spirit  of  God,  which  He 
is  conceived  to  use  as  His  agent.  Why  do  they  do  so? 
Usually,  perhaps,  it  is  simply  because  they  have  received 
these  experiences  while  under  Christian  influences  and 
have  been  taught  to  explain  them  in  this  way.  But  in 
many  cases  the  agency  of  Jesus  is  itself  a  part  of  the 
experience.  And  as  this  also  is  probably  a  new  and 
strange  idea  to  many  of  you  I  must  take  the  time  to  give 
a  typical  illustration  of  such  an  experience.  Let  me  quote 
the  words  of  a  Hindu  who  never  called  himself  a  Chris- 
tian but  remained  to  the  end  of  his  life  a  member  of  the 
Brahmo  Somaj — the  late  P.  C.  Mozoomdar.  After  re- 
lating how,  in  his  early  life,  although  he  had  never  been 
exposed  to  Christian  influences,  the  sense  of  sin  grew 
upon  him,  and  how  he  was  "  mysteriously  led  to  feel  a 
personal  affinity  to  the  spirit  of  Christ,"  he  proceeds : 

The  whole  subject  of  the  life  and  death  of  Christ  had 
for  me  a  marvellous  sweetness  and  fascination.  I  repeat, 
I  can  never  account  -for  this.  Untaught  by  any  one,  not 
sympathized  with  by  even  the  best  of  my  friends,  often 
discouraged  and  ridiculed,  I  persisted  in  according  to 
Christ  a  tenderness  of  honor  which  arose  in  my  heart 
unbidden.  I  prayed,  I  fasted  at  Christmas  and  Easter 
times.  I  secretly  hunted  the  bookshops  of  Calcutta  to 
gather  the  so-called  likenesses  of  Christ.  I  did  not  knoiv, 
I  cared  not  to  thinkf  whither  all  this  would  lead.  About 
the  year  1867  a  very  painful  period  of  spiritual  isolation 
overtook  me.  .  .  .  I  was  almost  alone  in  Calcutta.  .  .  . 
It  was  a  weekday  evening.  ...  7  sat  near  the  large  lake 

370 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

in  the  Hindu  College  compound.  .  .  .  /  was  meditating 
upon  the  state  of  my  soul,  on  the  cure  of  all  spiritual 
wretchedness,  the  brightness  and  peace  unknown  to  me 
which  was  the  lot  of  God's  children.  I  prayed  and  be- 
sought heaven.  I  cried,  and  shed  hot  tears.  It  might  be 
said  I  was  almost  in  a  state  of  trance.  Suddenly,  it  seemed 
to  me,  let  me  own  that  it  was  revealed  to  me,  that  close 
to  me  there  was  a  holier,  more  blessed,  most  loving  per- 
sonality upon  which  I  might  repose  my  troubled  head. 
Jesus  lay  discovered  in  my  heart  as  a  strange,  human,  kin- 
dred love,  as  a  repose,  a  sympathetic  consolation,  an  un- 
purchascd  treasure  to  which  I  was  freely  invited.  The 
response  of  my  nature  was  unhesitating  and  immediate. 
Jesus,  from  that  day,  to  me  became  a  reality  whereon  I 
might  lean.  It  was  an  impulse  then,  a  flood  of  light,  love, 
and  consolation.  It  is  no  longer  an  impulse  now.  It  is  a 
faith  and  principle;  it  is  an  experience  verified  by  a  thou- 
sand trials.  .  .  .  In  the  midst  of  these  crumbling  systems 
of  Hindu  error  and  superstition,  in  the  midst  of  this  self- 
righteous  dogmatism  and  acrimonious  controversy,  in  the 
midst  of  these  cold,  spectral  shadows  of  transition,  secu- 
larism, and  agnostic  doubt,  to  me  Christ  has  been  like 
the  meat  and  drink  of  my  soul.  (The  Oriental  Christ, 
Boston,  1888,  pp.  9-13.) 

It  will  be,  I  think,  obvious  to  those  of  you  who  are 
familiar  with  the  New  Testament  that  the  experience  of 
Mozoomdar  must  have  been  very  much  the  same  as  the 
experience  of  Paul.  Ignatius,  Bishop  of  Antioch,  must 
have  had  some  such  experience  to  inspire  the  language 
which  he  uses  in  the  letters  which  he  wrote  while  on  his 
way  to  Rome  to  be  exposed  to  the  beasts  in  the  Coliseum— 
Jesus  Christ,  our  true  Life  ( Smyrn.  4:1);  Jesus  Christ, 
our  inseparable  life  (Eph.  2:2)  ;  if  any  one  has  (Jesus) 
within  him  let  him  understand  what  I  mean  and  sympa- 
thise with  me,  knowing  what  things  constrain  me  (Rom. 
6:3);^  love,  in  the  stainless  joy  which  is  Jesus  Christ, 

371 


RELIGIONS  CF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

than  whom  there  is  nothing  better  (Mag.  7:1).  Again, 
it  is  some  such  experience  as  this  which  has  been  crystal- 
lized into  the  apocryphal  saying  of  Jesus  preserved  by 
Origen  (in  Jer.  horn.  lat.  3:3):  He  that  is  near  Me  is 
near  the  fire;  he  that  is  far  from  Me  is  far  from  the 
Kingdom. 

I  am  not,  I  will  ask  you  to  observe,  urging  upon  you 
any  particular  interpretation  of  these  phenomena.  But 
I  do  hold  that  these  experiences  constitute  a  class  of  phe- 
nomena which  occur  spontaneously,  which  are  sufficiently 
well  defined  to  be  made  an  object  of  study,  and  which, 
alone,  supply  the  key  to  the  comprehension  of  early  Chris- 
tianity. In  fact,  a  man  who  has  never  had  any  such 
experience  himself  and  has  never  tried,  by  diligent  study 
of  the  statements  of  those  who  have  had  them,  to  acquire 
some  sympathetic  insight  into  what  they  are  like,  will 
find  in  the  writings  of  the  early  Christians,  and  of  many 
later  ones,  little  but  unintelligible  jargon. 

It  was  on  the  day  of  Pentecost  that  the  Christian 
religion  really  came  into  being.  There  came  to  the  com- 
pany of  the  disciples,  as  they  sat  together  indoors  at 
about  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  a  mighty,  transforming 
experience.  Whether  the  account  which  has  come  down 
to  us  gives  a  faithful  picture  of  what  happened  upon  that 
memorable  day  or  not,  whether  there  really  was  heard 
the  sound  as  of  a  rushing,  mighty  wind,  whether  there 
really  appeared  tongues  as  of  fire  which  sat  upon  each 
of  them,  whether  they  really  spoke  foreign  languages 
of  which  they  had  before  been  ignorant — these  are  ques- 
tions which  each  of  us  will  answer  in  accordance  with  his 
preconceived  standards  as  to  what  is  possible  and  what 
is  not  possible  in  this  world  of  ours.  But  of  the  central 
fact,  of  the  mighty,  transforming  experience,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  whatever,  for  it  has  changed  the  whole 
course  of  history.  Nothing  else  can  explain  why  it  was 
that  these  humble  and  ignorant  Jews,  who  but  a  few 

372 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

days  before,  at  the  time  of  Jesus'  arrest,  had  shown  them- 
selves arrant  cowards,  were  transformed  into  veritable 
firebrands.  Sacrificing  home,  family,  friends,  all  that 
makes  life  worth  living,  they  devoted  their  lives  to  the 
preaching  of  a  doctrine  which  must  have  seemed  to  its 
first  hearers  an  insult  to  their  intelligence;  they  fearlessly 
faced  ridicule,  insult,  mob-violence,  imprisonment,  torture 
and  death ;  some  of  them  certainly  finally  laid  down  their 
lives  in  testimony  to  the  constancy  of  their  conviction. 

But  it  was  not  only  the  first  disciples  to  whom  this 
strange  experience  came.  When  they  began  their  preach- 
ing it  seemed  as  though  the  same  power  that  had  given 
them  strength  and  courage  was  cooperating  with  them, 
opening  the  ears  of  their  hearers,  forcing  conviction  upon 
unwilling  minds,  turning  sinners  from  their  sins,  support- 
ing them  in  their  efforts  to  tread  the  unaccustomed  way 
of  holiness,  shedding  abroad  in  their  hearts,  love,  joy  and 
the  "peace  of  God  which  passeth  all  understanding." 
These  earliest  Jewish  Christians,  long  before  the  time  of 
Paul,  to  whose  initiative  some  scholars  would  ascribe 
the  introduction  into  the  Church  of  this  type  of  Chris- 
tianity, dwelt  together,  we  are  told,  in  joy  and  singleness 
of  heart.  In  the  light  of  the  new  love  which  now  suffused 
them  all  distinctions  of  rank  and  wealth  faded  away  and 
those  that  had  property  sold  it  and  distributed  it  among 
the  brethren  so  that  all  shared  alike. 

These  were  the  facts  which  gave  the  Apostles  their 
new  appreciation  of  the  significance  of  Jesus  as  a  Saviour. 
Just  why  they  attributed  these  new  and  wonderful  spirit- 
ual blessings  to  His  agency  we  do  not  definitely  know, 
but  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  they  did.  And  not 
they  only.  Throughout  all  the  early  Christian  literature 
this  idea  recurs  again  and  again.  It  is  the  most  constant 
and  the  most  characteristic  trait  of  the  Christian  religion. 

But,  however  universal  the  recognition  of  Jesus' 
agency,  it  is  by  no  means  always  conceived  in  the  same 

373 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

way;  indeed,  it  is  often  expressed  in  such  vague  terms 
that  it  is  impossible  to  gather  from  them  a  clear  idea  of 
what  the  author's  conception  is.  Sometimes  love,  joy, 
knowledge,  light,  life,  immortality,  salvation,  are  de-« 
scribed  as  the  gifts  of  God  "  through  "  Jesus,  sometimes 
as  Jesus'  own  gifts.  Sometimes,  instead  of  love,  joy, 
knowledge,  life,  light,  immortality,  God  Himself  or  Jesus 
Himself  are  conceived  to  be  given  to  men  and  caused  to 
dwell  in  their  hearts.  Or,  instead  of  God  or  Jesus  it  is 
the  Spirit  of  God  or  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  which  gives  men 
these  blessings  or  dwells  in  their  hearts.  The  identifica- 
tion between  two  of  these  different  points  of  view  is  well 
shown  by  the  statement  of  John — he  that  dwellcth  in  love 
dwelleth  in  God,  and  God  in  him  (I  John,  4:  16). 

Of  these  conceptions  the  one  that  eventually  became 
dominant  was  that  of  the  "  Spirit/'  For  the  early  Chris- 
tians were  compelled  by  the  very  law  of  their  being,  just 
as  we  are  compelled,  to  interpret  new  experiences  in  terms 
of  received  conceptions,  and  the  conception  of  the 
"  Spirit "  was  familiar,  not  only  to  Jews,  through  the 
Old  Testament,  but  also  to  Gentiles,  for  it  had  long 
played  a  prominent  part  in  Greek  philosophy. 

It  will  be  observed  that  all  the  conceptions  of  Jesus' 
office  as  Saviour  which  I  have  so  far  touched  upon  center 
in  one  point,  that  He  is  in  some  way  responsible  for  the 
marvellous  new  experiences  which  were  appearing  in  the 
Christian  Church.  But  side  by  side  with  these  ideas  there 
grew  up  another  and  quite  independent  group  centering 
in  His  death  upon  the  Cross.  Here  again  the  associa- 
tion was  not  first  made  by  the  Apostles.  Jesus  had  more 
than  once  referred  to  His  death  and  had  connected  it 
with  His  work  as  a  Saviour.  But  the  nature  of  the  con- 
nection He  had  never  explained.  To  the  Christians,  how- 
ever, His  shameful  death  was  a  fact  imperatively  de- 
manding explanation,  and  many  explanations  for  it  were 
advanced  which  T  have  not  the  time  to  enumerate. 

.174 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

Among  them  the  one  which  became  most  widely  ac- 
cepted was  based  upon  the  notion  of  sacrifice.  Jew  and 
Gentile  alike  accepted  as  axiomatic  the  principle  enunci- 
ated by  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  (9 :  22) 
— Without  shedding  of  blood  there  is  no  remission,  and 
many  would  accept  as  reasonable  his  further  statement — 
it  is  not  possible  that  the  blood  of  bulls  and  of  goats 
should  take  away  sins  (10:4).  The  necessary  inference 
is  that  if  sins  are  to  be  forgiven  a  more  precious  sacrifice 
must  be  offered  than  any  provided  in  the  Mosaic  Law. 
This  is  the  reasoning  which  led  to  the  doctrine  that  Jesus' 
death  upon  the  cross  was  a  sacrifice  offered  to  God,  a  doc- 
trine which,  interpreted  in  various  ways,  has  played  so 
important  a  part  in  Christian  theology. 

Besides  the  experiences  of  which  I  have  above  spoken 
and  which  may  be  grouped  together  under  the  term 
"  spiritual  life,"  there  occurred  in  the  primitive  Christian 
community  a  number  of  other  phenomena  which  also  the 
Christians  attributed  to  the  operation  of  the  Spirit. 
Among  them  were  prophecy  or  inspired  speech,  fore- 
telling the  future,  symbolic  acts,  "  speaking  with  tongues," 
healing  diseases,  casting  out  demons  and  the  performance 
of  sundry  miracles.  Time  will  not  permit  me  to  discuss 
these  phenomena;  I  can  only  say  that  most  of  them  have 
been  reported  as  occurring  in  modern  times — some  years 
ago,  indeed,  I  had  myself  the  opportunity  of  studying  a 
case  of  "  speaking  with  tongues  "  which  presented  all  the 
characteristics  described  by  Paul  in  the  I2th  chapter  of 
1st  Corinthians — and  that  efforts  have  been  made  of 
late  to  explain  them.  But  so  far  these  efforts  have  been 
attended,  in  my  opinion,  with  little  or  no  success.  And 
if  we  cannot  explain  them,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the 
first  Christians  could  not,  except  by  falling  back  upon 
the  generally  accepted  explanation  of  their  age,  that  they 
were  due  to  "  spirits." 

Turning  now  from  the  earliest  forms  of  Christian 

375 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

thought  and  experience,  let  me  sketch  the  modes  of  com- 
mon action  in  which  they  found  expression. 

As  the  first  converts  were  Jews,  accustomed  to  the 
worship  of  the  synagogue,  they  no  doubt  continued  it, 
making  such  changes  only  as  their  new  ideas  suggested. 
They  also  continued  to  observe  the  Mosaic  Law  and  the 
rites  and  customs  sanctioned  by  tradition.  Among  these 
were  two  which  were  destined  to  develop  into  the  chief 
rites  of  the  Christian  Church — baptism  and  the  common 
meal. 

Baptism  was  at  this  time  practiced  by  the  Jews  as 
a  part  of  the  ceremonies  by  which  a  proselyte  was  ad- 
mitted to  Judaism.  But  it  had  been  used  by  John  the 
Baptist  with  a  special  significance — as  a  symbol  of  repent- 
ance and  the  remission  of  sins,  and  it  was  in  this  sig- 
nificance that  it  was  taken  over  by  the  Christian  Church. 
Jesus  never  Himself  baptized,  but  it  was  practiced  by 
His  disciples  during  His  lifetime  and  with  His  approval. 
In  the  Didache 1  it  is  preceded  by  instruction  of  the 
candidate,  by  fasting  on  the  part  both  of  the  candidate 
and  the  person  who  is  to  perform  the  ceremony.  It  was 
administered  either  by  dipping  or  by  pouring  and  either 
in  running  or  still  water,  but  preferably  the  former.  The 
only  prescribed  ritual  was  the  use  of  the  name  of  the 
Father,  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Spirit. 

The  common  meal  was  not,  strictly  speaking,  a  re- 
ligious ceremony  among  the  Jews.  But  it  was  required 
that  at  every  meal  certain  "  Blessings  "  or  thanksgivings 
should  be  uttered  over  the  food,  and  the  rules  prescribing 
what  they  should  be  are  preserved  in  the  Mishna.  It  is 
believed  that  the  Blessings  now  used  by  orthodox  Jews 
differ  little  in  form  from  those  in  use  in  Jesus'  time. 

*The  Didache,  or  Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles,  was  dis- 
covered in  Constantinople  by  Philotheos  Bryennios  in  1875  and  pub- 
lished in  1883.  It  is  a  brief  manual  of  instruction  in  the  duties  of 
Christians  as  individuals  and  as  church  members  and  concludes  with 
an  eschatological  chapter. 

376 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

But  Jesus  had  Himself,  at  the  last  meal  which  He 
ate  with  His  disciples  before  His  crucifixion,  invested 
this  simple  ritual  with  a  new  significance.  After  pro- 
nouncing the  usual  blessings  over  the  wine,  He  said — This 
is  my  "  blood  of  the  covenant "  which  is  shed  for  many, 
and  in  like  manner  He  said  of  the  bread — This  is  my 
body.  It  would  be  vain  for  me  to  attempt  now  to  discuss 
what  meaning  Jesus  attached  to  these  words  or  in  what 
sense  the  disciples  understood  them.  This  much  is  cer- 
tain, that  by  this  act  Jesus  transformed  the  ordinary  Jew- 
ish meal,  with  its  customary  Blessings,  into  the  Common 
Meal  or  "  Love-feast "  which  was  from  the  beginning 
the  chief  religious  service  of  the  Christian  Church  and. 
which  at  a  very  early  date  received  the  name  "  Eucharist," 
i.e.,  "  Thanksgiving." 

In  form  the  Eucharist  originally  differed  very  little 
from  any  ordinary  Jewish  meal  of  the  period.  A  simple 
liturgy  was  provided  for  its  celebration  conforming  in 
general  to  the  prescriptions  of  the  Mishna  for  the  prayers 
to  be  said  at  every  meal,  namely,  a  thanksgiving  over 
the  wine,  usually  at  the  beginning  of  the  meal,  although 
it  might  be  said  at  the  end,  another  over  the  bread,  which 
was  regarded  as  including  any  other  food  upon  the  table, 
and  a  longer  thanksgiving,  in  three  sections,  at  the  close 
of  the  meal.  But  there  is  one  striking  difference  between 
the  Jewish  prayers  and  those  of  the  Didache — the  former 
are  thanksgivings  for  food  and  drink  and  prayers  for 
material  blessings,  the  latter,  with  the  exception  of  a 
single  sentence,  speak  only  of  spiritual  blessings,  espe- 
cially those  made  known  through  Jesus. 

From  the  very  beginning  the  Eucharist  has  been 
associated  in  the  minds  of  Christians  with  the  sustenance 
and  renewal  of  the  spiritual  life  much  as  the  body  is 
by  food  and  drink.  Even  in  the  Didache,  which  is  recog- 
nized by  many  scholars  as  one  of  the  oldest  Christian 
documents  and  which  I  believe  to  have  been  written  in 

377 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

Jerusalem  before  the  year  70  (although  in  this  I  shall 
find  few  to  agree  with  me),  the  idea  of  spiritual  food 
and  drink  is  found  in  the  prayer  offered  after  the  Euchar- 
istic  meal :  We  thank  Thee,  Holy  Father,  for  Thy  holy 
Name  which  Thou  hast  made  to  dwell  in  our  hearts,  and 
for  the  knowledge  and  faith  and  immortality  which  Thou 
hast  made  known  to  us  through  Jesus  Thy  servant:  Thine 
be  the  glory  for  ever.  Thou,  Master  Almighty,  hast  cre- 
ated all  things  for  Thy  Name's  sake;  food  and  drink 
hast  Thou  given  to  men  for  enjoyment  that  they  might 
give  thanks  to  Thee;  but  to  us  Thou  hast  given  spiritual 
food  and  drink  and  eternal  life  through  Thy  Servant. 

It  is  a  strange  fact  that  the  liturgy  of  the  Didache 
contains  no  consecration  of  the  elements.  The  prayers 
are,  as  the  word  "  Eucharist "  implies,  for  the  most  part 
thanksgivings  for  spiritual  blessings.  They  contain  no 
request  that  such  blessings  be  given  to  the  congregation 
at  the  meal  in  question  but  only  that  the  Church  may  be 
sanctified  and  gathered  together  into  the  Kingdom  and 
that  "  Grace,''  i.e.,  the  Kingdom  of  Grace,  may  come  and 
this  world  pass  away. 

Still  more  strange  is  it  that  in  the  Didache  the  food 
on  the  table  is  regarded  as  a  symbol  of  the  spiritual  bless- 
ings conferred  by  Jesus  and  of  nothing  else.  There  is 
no  allusion  to  His  death  or  to  the  bread  and  wine  as  rep- 
resenting His  body  and  blood. 

That  the  author  could  have  been  ignorant  of  this  asso- 
ciation is  impossible  and  the  reasons  for  his  silence  can 
only  be  conjectured.  It  is  the  more  surprising  because 
in  all  our  other  sources  for  the  earliest  period  the  ideas 
of  the  bread  and  wine,  the  broken  body  and  shed  blood 
of  the  crucified  Jesus,  the  glorified  body  of  the  risen  Lord, 
the  spiritual  sustenance  received  through  the  sacrament, 
are  all  inextricably  intertwined.  These  are  the  ideas 
which  color  the  loth  and  nth  chapters  of  Paul's  first 
epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  and  the  6th  chapter  of  John's 

3/8 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

Gospel.  They  occur  also  very  frequently  in  the  letters  of 
Ignatius,  which  are  more  deeply  dyed  with  sacramental 
ideas  than  are  any  other  writings  of  the  early  age,  and  in 
the  writings  of  Justin  and  Irenaeus.  But  it  is  needless 
to  multiply  illustrations  from  later  writers,  for  these 
ideas  are  familiar  and  occur  in  nearly  all  before  the 
Reformation.  The  usual  explanation,  that  they  are  due 
exclusively  to  a  literal  interpretation  of  Jesus'  words 
of  institution,  is  quite  inadequate  to  account  for  the 
strange  vitality  of  a  most  paradoxical  doctrine.  It  is  not 
because  those  words  admit  of  no  other  than  a  literal 
interpretation,  but  because  the  formula,  however  super- 
ficially repugnant  to  reason,  has  been  felt  to  express  a 
truth  of  experience  that  so  many  efforts  have  been  made, 
century  after  century,  to  provide  for  it  a  satisfactory 
explanation  in  terms  of  the  science  accepted  at  the  time. 
The  strangest  aspect  of  the  primitive  Christian  ser- 
vices was  the  exercise  of  the  "  spiritual  gifts "  with 
which  sundry  members  believed  themselves  to  be  en- 
dowed. All  these  gifts,  as  I  have  above  remarked,  were 
supposed  to  be  due  to  some  spirit's  possessing  the  indi- 
vidual manifesting  them.  But  it  was  soon  perceived  that 
the  words  and  deeds  of  the  spirits  were  not  all  equally 
edifying.  Some  were  incoherent,  others  merely  silly, 
others  inconsistent  with  the  accepted  principles  of  the 
faith,  others  offensive  to  good  taste  or  even  to  good 
morals.  Moreover,  many  scoundrels  attached  themselves 
to  the  Christian  community  and,  by  pretending  to  the 
possession  of  the  spiritual  gifts,  abused  the  trust  of  the 
brethren  to  their  own  selfish  ends.  Hence  arose  the 
need  of  a  criterion  by  which  to  distinguish  the  utter- 
ances of  the  Spirit  of  God  from  those  of  evil  spirits  or  of 
deliberate  swindlers.  The  usual  criterion  was  the  Gospel 
principle,  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them.  In  the 
Didache  it  is  stated  that  if  an  itinerant  prophet  stays 
with  his  host  more  than  two  days,  if  he  accepts  any- 

379 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

thing  in  addition  to  enough  food  to  last  until  he  reaches 
his  next  lodging,  if  he  asks  money,  he  is  a  false  prophet. 
If  a  prophet,  speaking  by  a  spirit,  orders  a  meal,  that 
is,  a  celebration  of  the  Eucharist,  and  then  eats  of  it 
himself,  if  he  does  not  practice  what  he  preaches,  he  is 
a  false  prophet.  Sometimes  the  principle  is  applied  to 
the  words  uttered  by  the  Spirit.  Paul  gives  as  a  test 
the  words  Jesus  is  accursed  and  Lord  Jesus,  the  Spirit  of 
God  never  says  the  former  and  no  spirit  except  the  Holy 
Spirit  can  say  the  latter  (/  Cor.  12:  3). 

When  any  man's  spiritual  gifts  had  been  thus  tested 
and  approved  by  the  Church,  he  was  recognized  as  a 
<%  true"  prophet  (Did.  n  :  n).  Thereafter  he  was  not 
to  be  further  tested  or  criticized,  for  disapproval  of  the 
utterances  of  the  Holy  Spirit  constitutes  the  unpardon- 
able sin  (Did.  n  :  7;  cf.  Mk.  3  :  28-30). 

Nevertheless,  Paul  lays  down  (/  Cor.  12  and  14) 
two  other  restrictions — namely,  that  the  utterances  of  the 
spirits  must  be  edifying  and  that  the  spirits  of  the  prophets 
are  subject  to  the  prophets.  This  latter,  as  McGiffert 
acutely  observes  (The  Apostolic  Age,  p.  524)  marks  an 
epoch  in  the  history  of  Christian  worship.  For,  in  fact, 
the  so-called  automatic  phenomena  are  seldom  beyond  the 
control  of  the  will ;  they  are  usually  induced  by  expectancy 
and  refusal  to  exercise  voluntary  control,  as  any  one  can 
easily  test  by  experiment.  If  then  the  prophet  is  to  prac- 
tice none  save  those  which  commend  themselves  to  his 
judgment  as  edifying,  the  very  condition  of  their  being 
is  taken  away  and  they  will  disappear.  If  Paul's  advice 
had  been  followed  the  charismatic  ministry  would  soon 
have  become  a  thing  of  the  past. 

The  prophets  therefore  constituted,  in  a  sense,  an 
order  of  clergy.  In  fact,  they  were  the  only  "  clergy  " 
of  the  early  Church,  if  the  word  be  taken  to  mean  a  class 
of  men  set  apart  for  the  performance  of  religious 
functions.  Deacons  had  already  been  appointed,  but 

380 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

their  duty  was  the  distribution  of  the  alms  to  the  poor. 
Enfoxoicot  or  bishops,  also  were  appointed  at  an  early  date. 
They  were,  as  the  word  indicates,  "  overseers  "  or  "  trus- 
tees "  who  had  charge  primarily  of  the  temporal  inter- 
ests of  the  churches  and  in  particular  had  the  custody 
of  the  alms  and  the  responsibility  for  their  disposition. 
It  was  also  expected  that  the  bishop  would  discharge 
the  duties  of  hospitality  which  were  owed  by  the  Church 
to  any  travelling  Christian.  Yet  it  is  probable  that  almost 
from  the  beginning  the  bishops  performed  religious  func- 
tions also.  Since  the  prophets  were  the  most  honored 
members  of  the  Church,  it  would  be  natural  to  select 
a  prophet  for  the  office  of  bishop  and  hence  the  two 
officers  were  no  doubt  usually  held  by  the  same  man. 
Moreover,  the  Didache  expressly  states  that  the  bishops 
and  deacons  exercise  the  same  ministry  as  the  prophets 
and  teachers  (Did.  15:1).  Tlpsff^orepot ,  or  "  elders," 
are  frequently  mentioned  in  the  earliest  sources  but 
their  functions  are  not  definitely  specified. 

The  constitution  of  the  earliest  churches  was  un- 
doubtedly due  to  the  Apostles,  and  it  is  extremely  prob- 
able that  that  of  the  .church  of  Jerusalem,  which  had 
been  directly  instituted  by  them  and  of  which  I  believe 
the  Didache  gives  us  a  sketch,  served  as  a  model  for  the 
others.  Every  church  was  supposed  to  appoint  its  own 
officers,  for,  since  every  church  possessed  the  gift  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  it  was  felt  that  the  selection  of  the  officers 
should  be  left  to  the  Spirit,  as,  for  example,  the  Holy 
Spirit,  speaking  through  the  church  of  Antioch,  selected 
Saul  and  Barnabas  for  the  mission  to  the  Gentiles  (Acts 
13:2-3).  But  the  Apostles  were  not  only  possessed  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  in  a  preeminent  degree  but  were  also 
directly  commissioned  by  the  Lord  Himself  to  preach  the 
Gospel  and  found  churches,  hence  in  any  church  where 
the  wishes  of  an  Apostle  were  known  it  is  probable  that 
they  would  be  regarded  as  authoritative,  and  persons  se- 

381 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

lected  and  approved  by  an  Apostle  would  be  regarded  as 
possessed  of  similar  authority,  especially  when  confirmed 
by  the  voice  of  the  Holy  Spirit  speaking  through  the 
church  to  which  he  was  appointed.  Persons  thus  selected 
were  in  some  cases  and  probably  in  all  set  aside  for  their 
work  by  the  rite  of  ordination,  or«  "  laying  on  of  hands," 
in  which  all  the  elders  taok  part  and  which  was  regarded, 
certainly  by  Paul  and  probably  universally,  as  conferring 
the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

I  have  been  endeavoring  to  describe  the  primitive 
Christian  Church  as  it  was  in  the*  days  while  it  was  still 
chiefly  a  Jewish  se*ct,  when  most  Christians  observed 
the  Mosaic  Law  not  less  strictly  than  their  Jewish  breth- 
ren, shared  their  national  hopes,  looking  to  the  return-  of 
the  Messiah  for  their  realization,  and  never  dreaming 
that  the  religion  of  Jesus  was  to  become  an  almost  ex- 
clusively Gentile  faith,  spreading  to  the  remotest  corners 
of  the  earth  and  for  centuries  to  come  moulding  the 
evolution  of  nations  as  yet  unborn.  And  as  I  turn  from 
the  narrow  confines  of  Palestine  and  look  abroad  upon 
the  brilliant  Graeco-Roman  world,  as  I  see  the  Christian 
faith  with  its  rudimentary  theology,  its  pure  morality, 
its  fervent  devotion  to  the  living  Lord,  its  ardent  spiritual 
life,  entering  into  that  busy  pagan  civilization,  coming 
into  manifold  relations  of  attraction  or  repulsion  with 
its  innumerable  religions  and  philosophies,  with  its  politi- 
cal institutions,  its  moral  principles  and  social  customs, 
I  feel  that  any  picture  which  I  may  be  able  to  sketch 
in  a  few  paragraphs  will  be  hopelessly  inadequate. 

If  Christianity  was  to  become  a  world  religion  it 
must  renounce  a  large  part  of  its  Jewish  inheritance. 
The  Mosaic  Law,  already  sufficiently  burdensome,  had 
been  so  enlarged  by  new  distinctions  and  restrictions 
accumulated  in  the  course  of  centuries  that  it  had  become 
a  burden  too  heavy  to  be  borne.  That  any  large  number 
of  Gentiles  would  be  induced  to  accept  it  was  a  vain 

382 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

dream.  But  the  rejection  of  the  ritual  Law  necessitated 
a  radical  revision  of  the  traditional  Jewish  plan  of  salva- 
tion. According  to  that  theory,  as  I  have  said,  God  had 
made  a  covenant  on  Mount  Sinai  with  Moses  as  the 
representative  of  the  Jewish  nation  according  to  which 
God,  in  consideration  of  obedience  on  the  part  of  the 
Jews  to  the  entire  Law  then  revealed,  both  ritual  and 
moral,  contracted  to  give  them  the  land  of  Palestine 
together  with  sundry  worldly  and  material  blessings. 
Breach  of  this  contract  had  brought  upon  the  Jews  all 
the  disasters  with  which  they  had  been  afflicted ;  faithful 
observance  of  its  terms,  such  as  the  Pharisees  made 
their  aim,  would  lead  to  the  restitution  by  the  Messiah  of 
all  that  they  had  lost  and  very  much  more.  Such  was 
the  primitive  Jewish  conception,  and  it  was  still  the  belief, 
probably,  of  the  majority  of  the  nation.  But  it  must  not 
be  forgotten  that  many  entertained  nobler  ideals  than 
this. 

It  was  to  Paul,  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  that  the 
Church  owed  the  theory  of  the  relation  between  the  Old 
Covenant  and  the  New  which  later  became  the  orthodox 
doctrine.  Paul  admitted  the  existence  of  a  contract  be- 
tween God  and  the  Jewish  nation ;  he  held,  however,  that 
it  was  made,  not  with  Moses,  but  with  Abraham.  The 
consideration  was,  not  obedience  to  the  ritual  Law,  but 
simply  faith  in  God.  Abraham  represented,  not  the 
Jews  as  such,  but  only  those  Jews  who  had  that  faith. 
The  significance  of  the  New  Covenant  is  this:  faith  in 
God  implies  faith  in  His  Son,  Jesus,  and  that  faith  is 
rewarded  by  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  which  carries  with  it 
sanctification  and  salvation.  The  Mosaic  Law,  which 
Paul  conceives  as  primarily  a  moral  Law,  was  designed 
to  take  the  place  temporarily  of  the  influence  of  the 
Spirit,  demanding  that  obedience  which  the  regenerated 
soul  gives  willingly  and  necessarily;  it  is  therefore  not 
abrogated,  but  it  is  superfluous.  The  ritual  elements  of 

383 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

the  Law  Paul  regards  as  types  of  the  New  Covenant,  but 
he  does  not  develop  the  conception  in  detail.  This  is, 
however,  done  by  one  of  his  followers,  the  author  of  the 
anonymous  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  who  expounds  the 
significance  of  the  more  important  rites  and  shows  that 
their  fulfilment  in  Jesus  makes  unnecessary  their  further 
observance.  The  author  of  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas  car- 
ries out  the  same  conception  to  an  extravagant  extreme. 
Not  only  is  the  ritual  Law  symbolic;  it  was  never  in- 
tended by  God  to  be  put  into  practice  at  all.  But  at  the 
moment  when  it  was  being  given  the  Jews  sinned  by 
worshiping  the  golden  calf,  and  by  way  of  punishment 
an  evil  spirit  was  permitted  to  deceive  them  into  the 
belief  that  the  observance  of  this  mass  of  useless  and 
burdensome  ceremonies  would  be  rewarded  by  all  imagin- 
able blessings. 

The  conceptions  of  the  rewards  of  virtue  and  the  pun- 
ishments of  sin  which  Christianity  had  inherited  from 
Judaism  also  demanded  definition  and  revision.  The  older 
Judaism  had  had  no  definite  belief  in  a  life  after  death; 
all  the  sanctions  of  conduct  which  it  proclaimed  related 
to  the  life  on  earth.  Hence  the  necessity  of  a  resurrec- 
tion of  the  body,  if  all  pious  Jews  were  to  share  in  the 
glories  of  Messiah's  Kingdom.  But,  before  the  time  of 
Christ,  the  belief  that  the  souls  of  the  just  enjoy  a  purely 
immaterial,  spiritual  life  after  death  was  gaining  ground 
among  the  Jews,  and  the  attempt  to  reconcile  it  with 
the  accepted  belief  in  the  coming  Kingdom  had  led  some 
thinkers  to  represent  the  latter  as  rather  a  spiritual  than 
a  material  Kingdom.  This  was  the  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem adopted  by  Paul,  and,  seemingly,  by  John.  Paul 
teaches  most  emphatically  the  doctrine  of  the  Resurrec- 
tion, of  which  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  was  the  guarantee, 
but  teaches  not  less  emphatically  that  at  the  Resurrection 
our  material  bodies  will  be  transformed  into  spiritual 
bodies  such  as  was  the  body  of  Jesus  after  His  resurrec- 

384 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

tion.  Thus  the  traditional  conception  of  the  Messiah's 
Kingdom  merges  into  the  conception  of  a  purely  spiritual 
life  after  death.  But  even  Paul's  authority  was  not 
sufficient  to  give  this  doctrine  universal  currency.  For 
many  centuries  the  belief  in  the  resurrection  of  the  gross 
material  body  was  one  of  the  most  distinctive  features 
of  the  Christian  faith  and  was  defended  by  some  of  its 
representatives  with  all  the  resources  of  ancient  science. 
Indeed,  I  think  one  may  say  that  the  issue  has  never 
been  definitely  settled,  that  these  essentially  incompatible 
conceptions  still  maintain  their  ancient  rivalry  in  certain 
circles  of  the  Christian  Church. 

It  would  seem  that  the  problems  connected  with  the 
nature  of  Jesus'  own  person  and  His  relation  to  God 
provoked  no  acute  discussion  until  Christianity  came  into 
contact  with  Greek  thought.  He  had  called  Himself  the 
"  Messiah,"  "  Son  of  God,"  and  "  Son  of  Man,"  and 
had  declared  that  He  alone  knew  God,  but  there  is  nothing 
to  indicate  that  He  gave  any  detailed  explanation  of  His 
meaning.  In  default  of  any  such  explanation  His  dis- 
ciples would  naturally  interpret  such  expressions  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  ideas  which  they  already  attached  to 
them. 

These  ideas  were  themselves  diverse  and  lacking  in 
definition.  Some  conceived  the  Messiah  as  a  man,  a 
descendant  of  David,  who  was  to  be  anointed  with  the 
Spirit  of  God  to  enable  him  to  perform  the  work  to 
which  he  was  called.  So  also  was  Jesus  conceived  by 
some  to  be  a  man  who  had  been  anointed  by  the  Spirit 
at  the  time  of  His  baptism  by  John.  Others  thought 
that  the  Messiah  was  a  spiritual  being,  existing  in  heaven 
before  his  appearance  on  earth.  Jesus  was  conceived  by 
some  in  the  same  way,  and  various  theories  were  pro- 
posed to  explain  the  relation  between  the  preexisting 
Christ  and  the  man  Jesus.  According  to  one,  Jesus  was 
a  man  upon  whom  the  Christ  descended  at  His  baptism ; 
25  385 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

according  to  another,  the  Christ  was  united  to  Jesus  from 
His  conception  or  birth,  taking  the  place  of  the  ordinary 
human  soul;  according  to  yet  another,  the  Jesus  who 
walked  and  taught  in  Palestine  was  not  a  man,  possessed 
of  a  material  body,  but  was  the  Christ  himself,  His 
body  being  merely  an  apparition  or  phantom.  And  of 
each  of  these  theories  there  arose  in  later  ages  many  di- 
verse forms. 

The  most  influential  of  the  Christian  thinkers,  Paul 
and  John,  taught  that  Jesus  was  a  Divine  Being  whose 
relation  to  God  might  be  symbolized  or  expressed — it  is 
not  clear  which — by  the  word  "  Son  " ;  that  He  had  come 
down  to  earth  in  order  to  save  mankind;  that  He  had 
now  returned  to  heaven  and  had  been  invested  with  su- 
preme power  in  order  to  continue  the  work  which  He  had 
begun  on  earth.  This  doctrine  Paul  taught,  not  on  his 
personal  authority,  but  upon  the  authority  of  certain 
"  visions  "  and  "  revelations  "  which  had  been  given  di- 
rectly to  him.  The  precise  nature  of  the  relation  signified 
by  the  word  "  Son  "  Paul  does  not  fully  explain,  but 
he  intimates  that  the  revelations  contained  more  than  he 
sees  fit  to  tell  in  his  letters. 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  GOSPEL  AMONG  THE 
GENTILES 

When  Christianity  came  in  contact  with  Hellenism  its 
fundamental  conceptions  at  once  entered  upon  a  course 
of  further  definition  and  enlargement.  Many  of  the 
Gentile  converts  were  familiar  with  current  systems  of 
theology  and  philosophy,  and  it  was  inevitable  that  they 
should  endeavor  to  assimilate  their  new  faith  to  their 
old  convictions.  And  it  so  happened  that  the  ideas  of 
some  of  these  systems  resembled  those  of  Christianity 
sufficiently  to  make  the  identification  comparatively  easy. 

For  three  hundred  years  before  the  time  of  Christ 
the  ideas  of  the  Greek  philosophers,  and  in  particular 

386 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

those  of  the  Orphics,  Pythagoreans,  Platonists  and  Stoics, 
had  been  spread  far  and  wide  throughout  the  Orient  by 
the  dissemination  of  the  Greek  language  and  literature 
which  followed  the  conquests  of  Alexander.  They  had 
met  and  mingled  with  other  ideas  of  the  most  diverse 
origin,  with  the  religions  of  Anatolia,  of  Persia,  of  Baby- 
lonia and  of  Egypt,  with  astrology,  itself  a  complex 
product,  and  with  many  elements  the  origin  of  which 
can  no  longer  be  traced.  And,  most  important  of  all, 
in  the  mind  of  Philo,  the  devout  and  brilliant  Jew  of 
Alexandria,  whose  long  life  comprised  that  of  Jesus 
within  its  confines,  these  ideas  had  effected  their  most 
perfect  amalgamation  with  the  Hebrew  theology.  About 
the  same  time,  in  the  middle  or  latter  half  of  the  first 
century,  there  was  produced  in  Egypt  that  strange  little 
book  Poemander,  the  most  important  and  perhaps  the 
first  of  a  group  of  tractates  of  uncertain  dates,  now  pass- 
ing under  the  name  of  "  Thrice  Greatest  Hermes,'*  the 
purpose  of  which  is  to  propagate,  under  the  ostensible 
authority  of  the  Egyptian  god  Tat  or  Hermes,  a  philo- 
sophical religion  derived  chiefly  from  Plato  and  the 
Stoics. 

These  two,  the  works  of  Philo  and  the  Hermetic 
books,  are  the  most  important  surviving  monuments  of 
a  movement  which  must  have  exerted  considerable  influ- 
ence upon  the  speculations  of  the  years  immediately  pre- 
ceding and  following  the  Christian  era.  The  systems 
which  they  present  are  much  alike  in  their  fundamental 
ideas  and  both  resemble  in  a  very  striking  way  the  teach- 
ings of  the  primitive  Christian  faith.  Both  recognize 
one  God,  the  Father  of  the  All,  whose  essence  is  Light, 
Intellect  and  Goodness,  and  a  Son  of  God,  the  Logos, 
commonly  translated  "  Word "  but  more  properly 
"  Thought,"  also  called  the  "  Image  of  God  "  and  the 
"  Wisdom  of  God,"  who  is  the  Maker  and  Sustainer  of 
the  universe.  Both  speak  of  a  "  Breath  "  or  "  Spirit  " 

387 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

of  God  to  which  various  attributes  are  assigned  but 
which  is  not  clearly  distinguished  from  the  Logos.  Both 
regard  man  as  containing  or  capable  of  receiving  a  por- 
tion of  the  Logos  or  Spirit  of  God  and  therefore  as  him- 
self, actually  or  potentially,  a  "  son  of  God,"  although  in 
an  inferior  sense.  Both  conceive  man's  salvation  as  con- 
sisting in  return  to  God ;  both  teach  that  salvation  neces- 
sarily implies  repentance  for  sin  and  conversion  to  a  holy 
life  through  which  man  becomes  more  and  more  like 
God.  And,  most  significant  of  all,  both  teach  that  man's 
aspirations  towards  holiness  are  initiated  and  supported 
by  the  inflow  of  a  divine  power  into  his  soul,  called  by 
Philo  the  Logos  or  Spirit,  by  Hermes  the  Nous  or  Intel- 
lect. The  Hermetic  books  even  describe  the  transforma- 
tion of  the  evil  soul  into  a  holy  soul  in  the  very  lan- 
guage of  the  New  Testament,  as  a  "  new  birth,"  or 
"  regeneration." 

So  strong  was  the  affinity  between  Christianity  and 
this  type  of  thinking,  which  is  generally  known  as  "  Alex- 
andrian," that  some  measure  of  coalescence  between  them 
was  inevitable.  Even  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  de- 
scribes Jesus'  person  and  office  in  language  nearly  the 
same  as  that  used  by  Philo  of  the  Logos,  and  towards 
the  end  of  the  first  century  John,  in  the  Prologue  to  his 
Gospel,  identifies  Jesus  of  Nazareth  with  the  Incarnate 
Logos,  the  Maker  of  the  universe,  in  whom  is  Life  and 
Light. 

This  was  but  the  beginning  of  a  process  which  con- 
tinued in  unabated  activity  for  nearly  two  hundred  years. 
Christian  thinkers  eagerly  studied,  not  only  the  Alex- 
andrian philosophy,  but  also  its  sources  in  the  writings 
of  Plato  and  the  Stoics,  and  found  so  much  that  seemed  to 
them  true,  and  helpful  in  formulating  and  explaining  the 
truths  of  Christianity,  that  some  were  driven  to  accept 
Philo's  theory,  that  Plato  had  known  the  books  of  Moses, 
while  others  took  the  more  liberal  view,  that  the  Spirit 

388 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

of  God  had  not  disdained  to  enlighten  the  minds  even  of 
pagans,  enabling  them  to  attain  to  truths  beyond  their 
unaided  powers.  This  movement  reached  its  climax  in 
Clement  of  Alexandria  and  his  pupil  Origen,  the  latter  of 
whom,  by  far  the  most  learned  man  and  the  most  able 
thinker  produced  by  ancient  Christianity,  developed  a 
system  of  Christian  philosophy  into  which  so  much  of 
pagan  origin  had  been  introduced  that  its  author  was 
branded  a  heretic  by  the  generations  that  followed  him. 

But  the  borrowing  was  not  all  on  the  side  oi  the 
Christians.  There  arose  in  the  course  of  the  late  first 
and  early  second  centuries  a  number  of  sects,  usually 
described  as  Christian,  many  of  which  really  have  little 
in  common  with  traditional  Christianity  except  the  recog- 
nition of  Jesus  as  the  manifestation  on  earth  of  a  superior 
spiritual  being,  come  with  a  message  of  salvation  to  man- 
kind, while  others  are  wholly  pagan.  These  sects  are 
usually  called  "  Gnostic,"  a  word  derived  from  the  Greek 
word  rffls&v,  which  means  "  knowledge,"  more  especially 
some  knowledge  not  possessed  by  most  men.  The  knowl- 
edge which  the  Gnostics  professed  to  possess  was  knowl- 
edge of  the  spiritual  universe,  of  its  origin,  nature  and 
relation  to  this  material  world  and  to  man.  In  develop- 
ing their  systems  they  used  with  truly  catholic  impartiality 
material  drawn  from  Greek  philosophy,  from  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments  and  from  all  the  mythologies  of  the 
ancient  world.  They  also  pinned  their  faith  to  the  utter- 
ances of  certain  "  prophets  "  or  "  seers  " — we  would  call 
them  nowadays  "  mediums  "  and  "  clairvoyants  " — and 
wove  into  their  systems  the  supposed  revelations  thus 
obtained  of  the  spiritual  world.  Many  of  them,  more- 
over, claimed  that  their  doctrines  had  been  derived  by 
tradition  from  the  Apostles  themselves. 

Gnosticism  exerted  a  veritable  fascination  upon  many 
minds  and  for  a  time  it  seemed  as  though  Christianity 
were  in  danger  of  being  dissolved  into  a  multitude  of 

389 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

semi-pagan  sects.  But  the  leaders  of  the  Church  met 
the  danger  by  an  appeal  from  fancy  to  fact.  They  had 
in  their  hands  the  writings  of  the  men  who  had  seen 
the  Lord  and  had  been  taught  by  Him — in  which  of 
them  were  these  strange  doctrines  to  be  found?  In  the 
early  part  of  the  second  century,  when  Gnosticism  first 
became  influential,  men  still  survived  who  had  heard 
the  Apostles,  and  in  the  latter  part  there  were  many 
who  had  learned  their  Christanity  from  those  first  hearers 
— as  for  example  Irenaeus,  who  refers  with  deep  feeling 
to  his  memories  of  the  aged  Polycarp's  anecdotes  of 
John,  the  Disciple  of  the  Lord — these  men  were  asked 
to  say  whether  these  fantastic  theories  had  ever  been 
part  of  the  genuine  oral  tradition  of  the  Church. 

Thus  the  reaction  against  Gnosticism  checked  the, 
tendency  to  interpret  Christianity  in  terms  of  Greek  phi- 
losophy and  threw  Christian  theologians  back  upon  the 
Old  Testament  and  the  Apostolic  tradition,  especially  as 
handed  down  in  written  form.  And  if  this  was  true 
of  the  eastern  Greek-speaking  half  of  the  Empire,  where 
the  influence  of  Greek  culture  had  always  been  strongest, 
it  was  still  more  true  of  the  Latin-speaking  western 
half.  It  was  not  that  the  barrier  of  language  had  pre- 
vented the  spread  of  Alexandrian  ideas,  for  Greek  was 
the  language  of  the  western  as  well  as  of  the  eastern 
Christians  for  a  hundred  years  or  more,  but  rather  that 
the  genius  of  the  Latin  mind  was  different  from  that 
of  the  Greek.  Its  bent  was  rather  towards  law  and  state- 
craft than  towards  metaphysical  speculation,  and  it  found 
more  congenial  occupation  in  drawing  from  the  Scriptures 
a  definite  system  of  doctrine  and  code  of  practice,  a  theory 
of  the  Church's  rights  and  duties,  than  in  peering  into 
the  mysteries  of  the  spiritual  world. 

The  struggle  with  Gnosticism  was  also  a  chief  cause 
for  the  transformation  of  the  theory  of  the  work  of  the 
Spirit  which  was  taking  place  during  the  second  century, 

390 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

and  which  may  be  summed  up  by  saying  that  in  the  first 
century  the  Spirit  inspired  whomsoever  He  would,  while 
in  the  third  He  worked  only  through  the  medium  of  the 
sacraments. 

I  have  already  shown  that  from  the  beginning  it  had 
been  found  necessary  to  put  some  restrictions  upon  the 
"  liberty  of  prophesying."  The  utterances  of  supposedly 
inspired  speakers  were  to  be  judged  by  the  standard  of 
the  accepted  doctrines  of  the  Church ;  if  they  were  found 
inconsistent  with  them,  the  "  spirits "  possessing  the 
prophets  were  adjudged  evil  spirits.  The  progressive 
development  and  definition  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Church 
which  resulted  in  part  from  contact  with  Greek  thought 
and  in  part  from  the  battle  against  Gnosticism  imposed 
still  more  restrictions  upon  the  utterances  of  the  prophets, 
and  inclined  the  Church  authorities  to  look  with  disfavor 
upon  manifestations  which  might  at  any  moment  get 
beyond  control.  Moreover,  the  credence  given  by  the 
Gnostics  to  prophets  and  seers  tended  to  bring  prophecy 
into  still  greater  discredit  with  the  Church  authorities 
and  still  further  disposed  them  to  rest  their  case  ex- 
clusively upon  the  Old  Testament  and  the  written  and 
oral  tradition  of  the  Apostles. 

One  important  result  of  this  depreciation  of  contem- 
porary prophecy  was  the  formation  of  the  canon  of  the 
New  Testament  The  theory  entertained  by  many  schol- 
ars that  the  writings  of  the  Apostles  and  other  men 
of  the  first  generation  only  gradually  became  recognized 
as  inspired  is  at  variance  with  all  that  we  know  of  the 
point  of  view  of  the  early  Christians.  Paul,  John  the 
author  of  the  Apocalypse,  Clement  of  Rome,  Hermas, 
"  Barnabas,"  Ignatius,  all  claim  the  authority  of  inspira- 
tion for  their  writings,  and  it  is  not  in  the  least  probable 
that  those  to  whom  those  writings  were  addressed  dis- 
allowed the  claim.  There  were  many  other  works  now 
lost  which  laid  claim  to  inspiration  and  their  number  was 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

constantly  increasing;  indeed  every  new  movement  gave 
rise  to  a  flood  of  such  works,  some  the  product  of  sincere 
visionaries,  but  most  of  them  deliberate  forgeries.  The 
formation  of  the  canon  of  the  New  Testament  was  there- 
fore rather  a  process  of  exclusion  than  of  inclusion,  of 
rejecting  books  regarded  more  or  less  generally  as  in- 
spired, not  of  recognizing  in  the  writings  accepted  an 
inspiration  not  formerly  acknowledged. 

The  decline  of  the  ministry  of  the  Spirit  was  also 
furthered  by  the  gradual  disappearance  of  the  spiritual 
gifts  themselves,  at  least  in  their  more  striking  and  sensa- 
tional forms.  These  phenomena  are  apt  to  attend  crises 
in  the  spiritual  life  of  the  individual  and  were,  no  doubt, 
most  frequent  among  converts  won  from  the  outside 
world.  But  when  the  new  generations  came  into  being, 
children  of  Christian  parents,  born  and  bred  in  a  Chris- 
tian atmosphere,  they  could  have  felt  no  need  for  any 
such  violent  wrench  or  conversion  from  the  habits  and 
tastes  of  a  lifetime.  Their  religious  life  probably  pur- 
sued, as  we  see  to-day  in  Christian  families,  a  more  calm 
and  equable  course. 

Protests  against  this  tendency  were  not  lacking.  In 
the  latter  part  of  the  second  century  Montanus,  a  pres- 
byter of  Phrygia,  tried  to  restore  the  waning  ministry 
of  the  Spirit  to  its  pristine  position  of  importance  and 
founded  a  denomination  which  for  several  generations 
remained  outside  the  Catholic  Church.  Yet  even  among 
the  Montanists  the  same  factors  were  operating,  and  the 
attempt  failed.  The  spiritual  gifts,  however,  long  con- 
tinued to  appear  more  or  less  frequently.  They  must 
have  been  fairly  common  throughout  the  second  century 
— Irenseus  speaks  of  them  several  times — and  even  in  the 
third,  Origen  testifies  to  their  occurrence.  One  of  them, 
at  least,  the  power  of  casting  out  demons,  the  Church 
officially  recognized  in  the  creation  of  an  order  of  the 
ministry,  the  exorcists,  with  an  appropriate  ritual.  But 

392 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

by  the  fourth  century  they  were  unusual  and  had  entirely 
lost  their  original  position  of  importance. 

Yet  faith  in  the  reality  of  the  indwelling  Spirit  did 
not  pass  away  with  the  decline  in  frequency  of  the  more 
extraordinary  phenomena  and  depreciation  in  the  value 
formerly  ascribed  to  them.  Even  in  the  very  beginning 
of  the  Gospel  Paul  had  taught  that  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit 
is  love,  joy,  peace,  long-suffering,  kindness,  goodness, 
faithfulness,  meekness,  temperance  {Gal.  5:22);  that 
whether  there  be  prophecies,  they  shall  be  done  away; 
whether  there  be  tongues,  they  shall  cease;  whether  there 
be  knowledge,  it  shall  be  done  away;  but  that  love  never 
faileth  (I  Cor.  13:8).  And  so,  now  that  the  prophecies 
and  the  tongues  and  the  "  gnosis  "  were  passing  away, 
the  more  spiritually  minded  among  Christians  came,  with 
Paul,  to  see  that  love  to  God  and  man  and  the  holy  life 
which  love  inspires  constituted  the  best  evidence  of  the 
Spirit's  presence. 

But  that  not  all  were  capable  of  such  spiritual  in- 
sight is  indicated  by  the  growing  tendency  to  regard  the 
sacraments  as  not  merely  an  occasion  upon  which  or  a 
means  through  which  the  Spirit  was  received  but  as  in- 
struments which  necessarily  conveyed  the  Spirit  to  the 
recipient.  I  shall  be  able  to  speak  of  the  Eucharist  only; 
the  development  was  of  the  same  general  character  in 
the  case  o-f  the  other  sacraments. 

The  primitive  Eucharist,  or  Common  Meal,  of  the 
Jewish  Christian  Church,  was  a  peculiarly  Christian  rite. 
The  idea  of  using  food  in  a  sacramental  way,  that  is, 
as  a  means  of  conveying  spiritual  blessings  to  the  par- 
ticipant, was  foreign  to  the  Jewish  mind.  But  when 
the  Eucharist  was  transplanted  into  the  Gentile  world, 
the  ideas  originally  associated  with  it  encountered  in  the 
minds  of  Gentile  converts  conceptions  of  different  origin 
which  were  sufficiently  akin  to  them  to  make  their  fusion 
inevitable.  Of  these  conceptions  three  call  for  special 

393 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

mention.  The  first  is  the  notion  that  by  eating  a  sacri- 
ficial animal  which  a  god  had  entered  into  and  possessed, 
one  may  participate  in  the  very  substance  of  the  god  and 
acquire  his  immortality.  The  second  is  the  principle 
upon  which  much  of  the  ritual  of  magic  was  based,  that 
by  repeating  certain  formulae  of  consecration  over  given 
substances  certain  properties  may  be  conferred  upon  them, 
and,  especially,  that  otherwise  inert  substances  may  in 
this  way  be  given  medicinal  virtue.  The  third  is  the 
theory  which  is  implied  in  a  "  Mystery  "  in  the  original 
sense  of  the  word.  A  "  Mystery  "  was  a  pantomime, 
representing  some  event,  usually  some  tragic  event,  in 
the  life  of  a  god.  It  was  believed  that  the  persons 
participating  in  the  Mystery,  or,  at  a  later  date,  merely 
witnessing  its  performance,  acquired  thereby  special  favor 
in  the  eyes  of  the  god  and  would  receive  from  him  bless- 
ings not  granted  to  others. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  these  ideas  were  prevalent 
in  the  ancient  world,  although  much  uncertainty  still 
hangs  over  their  origin,  the  extent  of  their  diffusion  and 
the  nature  of  the  rites  in  which  they  were  expressed. 
And  there  is  also  no  doubt  that  the  later  development 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  sacraments  and  especially  the  lan- 
guage in  which  it  was  formulated  were  influenced  by 
these  ideas.  The  unceasing  efforts  to  define  the  relation 
between  the  body  and  blood  of  Jesus  and  the  elements 
of  the  Eucharist,  the  increasing  importance  of  the  act 
of  consecration,  the  tendency  to  regard  the  elements  as 
mechanically  communicating  grace,  the  development  of 
the  theory  that  the  Eucharist  is  not  merely  a  commemora- 
tion but  an  actual  repetition  of  the  sacrifice  on  the  Cross — 
these  are  all  indications  of  the  influence  of  these  ideas  upon 
Christian  thought.  Yet  they  were  not  the  only  or  the 
chief  reasons  for  the  supreme  sanctity  which  was  and 
still  is  attached  to  the  Eucharist  by  the  Church.  These 

394 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

reasons  lie,  as  I  have  shown,  much  deeper,  in  the  personal 
experience  of  individuals. 

It  was  this  feeling  of  reverence  for  the  Eucharist 
which  ultimately  led  to  its  separation  from  the  Common 
Meal.  It  was  difficult  to  maintain  throughout  a  meal  in 
which  many  persons  took  part  the  atmosphere  of  devo- 
tion which  was  appropriate  to  the  occasion,  and  hence 
the  custom  arose  of  observing  the  two  rites  at  different 
times,  the  Common  Meal  coming  more  and  more  to  be 
regarded  as  a  work  of  charity  only  at  which  the  poor  of 
the  Church  were  fed.  It  is  probable  that  this  distinction 
had  come  to  be  observed  by  some  churches  in  the  second 
century,  but  the  details  of  the  process  are  unknown.  It  is, 
however,  certain  that  meals  resembling  the  primitive 
Eucharist  survived  in  some  branches  of  the  Church  for 
many  centuries. 

It  was  largely  under  the  influence  of  the  foreign 
ideas  to  which  I  have  above  referred  that  the  vague  con- 
ceptions of  the  first  and  second  centuries  were  finally 
defined  and  worked  up  into  the  carefully  reasoned  theory 
of  the  Catholic  Church  as  the  sole  dispenser  of  salvation 
which  meets  us  in  an  advanced  stage  of  development  in 
the  early  part  of  the  third  century  and  was  completed 
in  the  fourth.  The  fundamental  principle  of  this  theory 
is  the  doctrine  that  supernatural  virtue  can  be  conferred 
in  no  other  way  than  by  one  who  possesses  it.  The 
layman  can  receive  the  Spirit  only  through  the  sacra- 
ments, the  sacraments  derive  their  virtue  only  from  their 
consecration,  the  consecration  is  effective  only  when  per- 
formed by  an  ordained  priest,  a  priest  can  be  ordained 
only  by  another  ordained  priest,  and  if  one  follows  back 
the  series  of  ordinations  one  ultimately  reaches  the 
Apostles.  The  first  fairly  consistent  presentation  of 
this  theory  is  found  in  the  writings  of  Cyprian,  Bishop 
of  Carthage  and  Martyr,  in  the  middle  of  the  third  cen- 

395 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

tury.  For  example,  in  Letter  73  he  says,  speaking  of 
the  Church :  She  it  is  who  alone  holds  and  possesses  all 
the  authority  of  her  Spouse  and  Lord;  over  her  we  pre- 
side, for  her  honor  and  unity  we  fight,  her  good  name 
and  fame  alike  we  defend  with  faithful  devotion.  We, 
with  the  divine  permission,  water  the  thirsty  people  of 
God,  we  guard  the  margins  of  the  fountains  of  Life. 

While  these  changes  in  the  ideas  of  Christians  as  to 
the  conditions  under  which  the  Spirit,  which  was  the  life 
of  the  Church,  was  to  be  obtained  undoubtedly  had  much 
to  do  with  the  increase  in  the  power  of  the  clergy  which 
took  place  between  the  first  and  the  third  centuries,  and 
is,  from  my  present  point  of  view,  the  most  interesting  of 
the  factors  working  towards  that  end,  it  was  by  no  means 
the  only  one.  Probably  of  equal  and  possibly  of  greater 
weight  was  the  imperative  need  of  a  central  authority 
making  for  unity,  to  counteract  the  numerous  disruptive 
tendencies  of  the  period.  The  multiplication  of  new  doc- 
trinal theories,  the  insidious  attractions  of  pagan  civili- 
zation, the  furious,  if  intermittent,  blasts  of  persecution, 
made  it  necessary  to  vest  somewhere  the  right  to  define 
what  the  Church  believed,  to  discipline  offenders  against 
morality,  to  strengthen  weak  brethren  and  to  fix  the  con- 
ditions upon  which  the  lapsed  might  be  received  back  into 
the  fold.  Eventually  these  and  other  powers  were 
lodged  in  the  hands  of  the  bishops,  either  as  individuals, 
or,  collectively,  in  council  assembled. 

Whatever  the  causes,  the  practical  result  of  their 
operation  was  the  emergence  of  a  conception  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  as  a  close  corporation,  consisting  primarily 
of  a  body  of  ordained  clergy  who  possessed  the  ex- 
clusive right  of  giving  or  of  withholding  the  Holy  Spirit, 
that  is  to  say,  eternal  salvation,  at  their  discretion.  And 
this  doctrine  was  the  cornerstone  upon  which  was  erected 
the  imposing  fabric  of  the  mediaeval  Church. 

396 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY 

Let  me  sum  up  briefly  the  important  features  of  the 
theory  which  I  have  been  putting  before  you.  The  es- 
sence of  early  Christianity  is  not  to  be  found  in  its  insti- 
tutions, ritual  or  doctrine.  Of  these,  those  which  it 
received  from  Jesus  were  few  and  simple.  Others  it 
inherited  from  Judaism,  others  it  borrowed  with  more 
or  less  modification  from  contemporary  Hellenistic  cul- 
ture, still  others  it  devised  itself.  But  at  the  very  out- 
set it  essentially  was  the  kindling  of  the  spiritual  life 
in  the  hearts  of  many  men  under  the  same  conditions — 
namely,  the  preaching  of  Jesus  as  Lord  and  Saviour. 
This  was  then  and  still  is  an  extraordinary  and  inex- 
plicable phenomenon.  Never  before,  so  far  as  is  known, 
had  such  multitudes  been  affected,  never  before  had  such 
fruits  in  the  way  of  reformation  of  character  and  puri- 
fication of  moral  ideals  been  observed.  This  spiritual 
life  was  accompanied  in  the  beginning  with  other  mani- 
festations of  little  or  no  moral  value,  which  in  time  passed 
away.  It  was  associated  even  in  the  minds  of  the  first 
Christians  with  the  sacraments,  and  ecclesiastical  theory 
in  time  sought  to  chain  it  down  to  them,  but  it  has  never 
been  bound  by  the  bond.  It  has  been  more  conspicuously 
manifested  at  certain  times  and  among  certain  persons, 
but  its  essential  elements,  namely,  a  new  attitude  towards 
God,  a  new  aversion  towards  sin,  the  inflow  of  a  new 
consciousness  pervaded  by  joy  and  love,  seemingly  com- 
ing from  without,  sustained  and  from  time  to  time  re- 
newed by  fresh  inflows,  especially  in  connection  with  the 
Eucharist — these  have  never  disappeared  from  any 
branch  of  the  Christian  Church.  It  has  created  a  new 
terminology,  inspired  a  new  literature,  found  expression 
in  new  liturgies,  rituals  and  doctrines,  and  has  exercised 
incalculable  influence  upon  the  evolution  of  the  Western 
world. 

397 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

(Only  books  accessible  in  English  are  mentioned  and  only  a  few 

of  the  more  important  of  them.) 

SOURCES  : 

The  New  Testament. 

The  Apostolic  Fathers.  Complete  editions,  with  text  and  trans- 
lations by  J.  B.  Lightfoot  and  J.  R.  Harmar,  1891,  and  by  Kir- 
sopp  Lake  in  The  Loeb  Library,  2  vols.,  1912,  1913.  Editions  of 
the  several  works,  with  notes  and  translations :  Clement  of 
Rome,  Ignatius  and  Polycarp,  by  J.  B.  Lightfoot  in  The  Apostolic 
Fathers,  5  vols.,  1885-90 ;  The  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  by  W.  Cun- 
ningham, 1877:  The  Didache,  by  P.  Schaff  in  The  Oldest 
Church  Manual,  1886.  Translations,  usually  not  very  good,  of 
nearly  all  the  early  literature  will  be  found  in  The  Ante-Nicene 
Fathers,  American  edition,  1885,  et  seq. 

HISTORIES  :  A.  C.  McGiffert,  The  Apostolic  Age,  and  R.  Rainy,  The 
Ancient  Catholic  Church,  both  in  The  International  Theological 
Library;  L.  M.  O.  Duchesne,  Early  History  of  the  Christian 
Church,  2  vols.,  1909,  1913;  P.  Wernle,  The  Beginnings  of 
Christianity,  2  vols.,  1903,  1904;  S.  J.  Case,  The  Evolution  of 
Early  Christianity,  1914. 

THE  JEWISH  AND  HELLENISTIC  ENVIRONMENT:  J.  Drummond,  The 
Jewish  Messiah,  1877;  Philo  Judaus  and  the  Jewish  Alex- 
andrian Philosophy,  2  vols.,  1888;  E.  Schiirer,  The  History  of 
the  Jewish  People  in  the  Time  of  Jesus  Christ,  3  vols.  in  5, 
1890-91 ;  C.  A.  Briggs,  The  Messiah  of  the  Apostles;  Sir  Wil- 
liam M.  Ramsay,  The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire;  E.  Hatch, 
4~The  Influence  of  Greek  Ideas  and  Usages  upon  the  Christian 
Church,  being  The  Hibbert  Lectures,  1888 ;  C.  Clemen,  Primitive 
Christianity^  and  its  non-Jewish  Sources,  1912;  W.  M.  Groton, 
The  Christian  Eucharist  and  the  Pagan  Cults,  being  The  Bohlen 
Lectures,  1913;  C.  Bigg,  The  Christian  Platonists  of  Alex- 
andria, being  The  Bampton  Lectures,  1886,  2d  edition,  1913 ; 
*"  F.  Cumont,  Astronomy  and  Religion  among  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  1912 ;  G.  R.  S.  Mead,  Thrice  Greatest  Hermes,  3  vols., 
1916,  and,  Fragments  of  a  Faith  Forgotten  (.i.e.,  Gnosticism), 
1906 ;  F.  Legge,  Forerunners  and  Rivals  of  Christianity,  2  vols., 
1915. 


398 


CHAPTER  XIV 

MEDIAEVAL  CHRISTIANITY 
BY  ARTHUR  C  ROWLAND 

IN  discussing  a  religion  which  is  considered  by  its 
adherents  as  God's  direct  and  final  revelation  of  truth 
delivered  through  his  own  person,  the  selection  of  a  par- 
ticular period  within  which  the  religion  assumed  a  char- 
acter of  its  own  capable  of  being  designated  by  any 
such  descriptive  term  as  mediaeval  might  at  first  sight 
appear  illogical.  Yet  while  it  can  be  said  that  Chris- 
tianity is  the  same  to-day  as  it  was  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  the  same  in  the  Middle  Ages  as  it  was  in  the  time  of 
the  Apostles,  it  is  equally  true  that,  like  any  other  living 
thing,  Christianity  is  constantly  changing  and  developing, 
and  that  it  is  not  the  same  in  any  two  succeeding  genera- 
tions. Under  different  environments  the  human  mind 
reacts  in  different  ways  towards  the  same  body  of 
principles. 

The  Middle  Ages  as  generally  understood  comprise 
the  thousand  years  that  intervened  between  the  collapse 
of  the  Roman  imperial  organization  in  Western  Europe 
and  the  Reformation  or,  in  round  numbers,  the  period 
from  500  to  1500.  The  old  idea  that  this  was  a  stagnant 
epoch,  that  such  a  cycle  of  years  could  be  fittingly  char- 
acterized by  any  such  term  as  the  Dark  Ages,  has  long 
been  given  up.  We  now  know  that  the  human  mind 
was  as  active  then  as  at  any  other  time,  that  the  deepest 
questions  of  philosophy  and  life  were  propounded  and 
answered,  that  constant  change  and  readjustment  were 
going  on  as  at  other  times.  Nevertheless,  there  were 
in  the  Middle  Ages  certain  traits  and  certain  conditions 
that  serve  to  mark  them  off  both  from  the  ancient  and 

399 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

from  the  modern  world.  These  formed  an  environment 
which  caused  the  men  of  that  age  to  envisage  their  re- 
ligion and  its  mission  in  a  particular  way  and  gave  to 
mediaeval  Christianity  a  character  of  its  own. 

The  mediaeval  Church  was  distinguished  from  primi- 
tive Christianity  by  a  systematized  theology  and  a  highly 
developed  form  of  organization ;  and  from  modern  Chris- 
tianity by  the  absence  of  the  competition  and  rivalry  that 
has  existed  since  the  appearance  of  Protestantism.  From 
both  ancient  and  modern  times  it  was  distinguished  by 
the  fact  that  it  did  not  exist  side  by  side  with  a  highly 
developed  political  society  and  so  did  not  have  to  modify 
its  rules  or  its  theories  at  the  behest  of  the  State  but  could 
confidently  assume  a  superiority  to  national  organizations. 
Finally,  the  ignorance  of  natural  science  and  of  the 
modern  conception  of  the  laws  of  nature  gave  to  the 
religion  of  that  day  a  character  in  some  respects  far 
different  from  that  of  modern  religion.  By  keeping  these 
three  features  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  mind — first,  an 
elaborate  church  organization  that  had  no  rivals ;  second, 
the  conception  of  a  physical  universe  governed  and  con- 
trolled by  the  caprice  of  supernatural  powers  rather  than 
by  immutable  law;  and  third,  a  primitive  and  incoherent 
state  organization  incapable  of  performing  the  most  im- 
portant tasks  of  society — we  are  in  a  position  to  under- 
stand some  of  the  special  features  of  mediaeval 
Christianity. 

When  the  religion  of  Christ  became  the  universal 
faith  of  Europe,  the  development  of  an  elaborate  insti- 
tutional life  became  a  necessity  of  existence.  Its  wide 
and  rapid  extension  after  the  days  of  Constantine  meant 
for  the  mass  of  the  inhabitants  of  Europe  a  conversion 
in  name  only.  Pagan  habits  of  thought,  old  standards 
of  conduct  and  morality,  could  not  be  changed  with  the 
same  ease  as  the  practice  of  the  pagan  cults  had  been 
abolished  at  the  command  of  the  Roman  government. 

400 


MEDIEVAL  CHRISTIANITY 

It  was  possible,  however,  to  enforce  an  outward  con- 
formity to  elaborate  ceremonies  and  rites,  the  observance 
of  which  could  be  enforced  on  a  population  however 
indifferent  to  the  inner  spirit  of  Christ's  teachings,  and 
thus  to  create  a  concrete  institution  that  would  command 
the  loyalty  and  devotion  of  a  half -barbarous  world.  This 
development  took  place  largely  at  the  hands  of  Italian 
churchmen  imbued  with  the  ideas,  and  inheriting  the 
genius  of  the  men  who  had  created  the  Roman  Empire. 
The  creative  genius  of  Rome,  as  is  well  known,  lay  chiefly 
in  law  and  administration.  It  is  not  strange,  therefore, 
that  church  institutions  took  on  a  strongly  legalized  tinge 
and  that  the  conception  of  formal  law  rather  than  that 
of  the  inspiration  of  the  Spirit  should  have  governed  the 
relations  of  the  ordinary  man  to  God.  A  degree  of  for- 
mality grew  up  which  threatened  to  impoverish  spiritual 
life;  an  insistence  on  external  acts  in  the  religious  cult 
which  seemed  capable  of  developing  into  a  contract  be- 
tween the  Church  and  its  members  whereby  the  former 
would  guarantee  ultimate  salvation  in  return  for  the 
performance  of  specified  acts  of  worship.  In  other 
words,  mediaeval  Christianity  was  threatened  with  the 
evil  inherent  in  every  highly  developed  institution,  the 
danger  of  sacrificing  the  spirit  to  the  form. 

That  this  danger  did  not  overwhelm  the  Church,  that 
Christianity  did  not  cease  to  embody  the  highest  spiritual 
ideals  of  the  age,  is  largely  due  to  the  influence  of  that 
most  characteristic  form  of  mediaeval  religion — Mon- 
asticism.  In  origin  a  revolt  from  the  Church,  a  protest 
against  the  worldliness  that  threatened  to  overwhelm  it 
after  the  conversion  of  Constantine,  monasticism  was 
soon  reconciled  to  the  general  organization  and  promptly 
took  its  place  as  the  expression  of  the  highest  ideal  of 
Christianity.  Withdrawn  from  the  world,  interested  only 
indirectly  in  questions  of  government  and  discipline  in 
the  Church  at  large,  the  monk  could  devote  himself  to 
26  401 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

the  interests  of  the  mind  and  the  spirit  to  a  degree  im- 
possible for  the  bishop  or  the  secular  priest. 

The  type  of  piety  thus  developed  does,  indeed,  strike 
us  as  something  exotic.  With  its  passivism,  its  asceti- 
cism, its  pessimistic  views  of  the  world,  it  was  more 
oriental  than  occidental.  But  Christianity  was  an  eastern 
religion,  and  the  logical  mind  of  the  Middle  Ages  saw  in 
monasticism  the  true  expression  of  its  inner  spirit.  The 
great  problem  of  Christianity  in  all  ages  has  been  to  recon- 
cile Christ's  teachings  with  the  standards  of  conduct  im- 
posed by  practical  life;  to  adapt  the  doctrine  of  brotherly 
love  to  the  exigencies  of  the  struggle  for  existence;  and 
to  determine  what  compromise,  if  any,  shall  be  accepted 
between  the  rules  of  conduct  laid  down  by  Jesus  and 
the  needs  of  those  who  wish  to  succeed  in  the  world. 
These  questions  are  no  less  pressing  to-day  in  the  midst 
of  the  economic  competition  of  the  modern  world  and 
the  bloodshed  of  national  war  than  they  were  under  the 
feudal  regime.  Each  age  has  sought  its  own  answer  to 
the  problem  with  greater  or  less  success.  What  that  an- 
swer shall  be  to-day  is  baffling  the  greatest  religious 
leaders.  But  in  the  Middle  Ages,  it  was  found  in  monas- 
ticism.  For  the  man  of  the  world  whether  layman  or 
secular  priest  or  bishop,  the  answer  was  found  in  the 
standard  of  conduct  that  seemed  to  be  required  by  the 
necessities  of  active  life,  by  the  desire  for  wealth,  the 
love  of  power,  the  need  of  pleasure,  the  demands  of  am- 
bition. For  the  monk  it  lay  in  the  renunciation  of  all 
these  things,  the  voluntary  acceptance  of  poverty,  the  sac- 
rifice of  the  domestic  affections,  the  complete  surrender 
of  the  will  to  a  human  superior  and  with  it  all  thought  of 
human  ambition ;  and  within  the  walls  of  the  monastery 
absolute  equality  among  the  brothers  without  regard  to 
their  former  rank  in  the  outer  world. 

Thus  two  types  of  Christianity  were  recognized  in  the 
Middle  Ages.     One  was  for  the  world  at  large,  where 

402 


MEDIEVAL  CHRISTIANITY 

though  the  teachings  of  Christ  were  held  up  as  an  ideal, 
a  certain  compromise  was  recognized  as  necessary,  the 
Church  with  its  rites  and  sacraments  serving  as  mediator 
and  providing  for  the  ultimate  salvation  of  its  children 
notwithstanding  their  maculation  by  the  world.     The 
other  was  for  the  chosen  of  God  whose  spiritual  strength 
enabled  them  to  follow  literally  what  the  men  of  that  age 
conceived  as  the  pure  teachings  of  Christ.     As  to  which 
of  these  two  types  was  the  higher,  the  Middle  Ages  did 
not  hesitate  to  pronounce.     To  them  the  monk  was  the 
true  exemplifier  of  religion.    The  term  by  which  he  was 
designated  and  which  served  to  distinguish  him  not  only 
from  the  laity  but  from  the  ordinary  clergy  was  religiosus, 
"  the  religious  man."     The  cho-ice  of  the  monastic  life 
by  one  who  was  already  a  Christian  and  a  member  of  the 
Church  was  described  as  conversion,  a  term  that  reminds 
us  curiously  of  Puritan  phraseology  and  at  bottom  means 
the  same  thing — a  deep  religious  experience  that  sets  one 
apart  from  the  world  and  makes  him  a  participant  in  the 
communion  of  saints.     To  the  Puritan  no  man  was  a 
member  of  Christ's  Church  who  had  not  felt  a  conviction 
of  sin  in  his  own  person,  who  had  not  cast  off  the  old 
man  and  thus  been  born  again  into  the  Kingdom.     But 
to  the  Middle  Ages  this  Christian  rebirth  took  place  at 
baptism.     It  was  then  that  the  old  Adam  was  cast  off 
and  the  devil  and  all  his  works  were  renounced.     Thus 
all  men  found  themselves  members  of  the  Church  with- 
out conscious  choice  of  their  own  and  secure  of  ultimate 
salvation,  provided  they  remained  her  faithful  children 
and  followed  the  rites  she  prescribed.     In  monasticism 
was  to  be  found  the  higher  spiritual  life  of  the  age,  while 
the  doctrine  of  purgatory  developed  to  reconcile  the  de- 
mands of  divine  justice  with   the   acceptance   of  such 
diverse  standards  of  life  for  different  elements  in  the 
Church. 

Thus  monasticism  stands  forth  as  one  of  the  char- 

403 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

acteristic  features  of  mediaeval  Christianity,  a  feature  the 
significance  of  which  was  due  to  the  elaborate  develop- 
ment of  the  Church  as  an  institution  and  to  the  mechani- 
cal nature  of  the  religious  life  which  institutionalism  fos- 
ters among  the  great  mass  of  mankind. 

Though  the  monks  formed  an  integral  part  of  the 
Church  they  followed  ideals  and  adopted  customs  which 
dissociated  them  from  the  general  life.  The  cure  of  souls 
and  the  management  of  the  property  and  of  the  political 
interests  of  the  Church  were  tasks  quite  foreign  to  their 
fundamental  interests.  Hence,  shut  off  and  protected 
from  such  cares,  they  were  free  to  devote  themselves  to 
other  and  more  altruistic  interests.  It  was  they  who  were 
the  leading  scholars  and  the  chief  educators  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  It  was  they  who  revived  the  arts  which  had  almost 
perished  on  the  downfall  of  ancient  civilization,  and  con- 
tinued to  foster  them  until  culture  began  again  to  revive. 
Their  charity  was  the  chief  solace  of  the  poor  when  the 
wealth  of  the  secular  church  was  largely  devoted  to 
worldly  ends.  And  it  was  they  who  furnished  the  mis- 
sionaries who  converted  heathen  and  barbarous  Europe 
to  Christianity. 

Since  the  monks,  unlike  the  secular  clergy,  did  not 
enter  into  competition  with  lay  society,  they  were  free 
to  adopt  principles  of  organization  elsewhere  unknown 
in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Church  at  large,  like  feudal 
society  in  general,  was  thoroughly  aristocratic.  Small 
chance  therein  for  the  poor  man  save  as  a  parish  priest 
who  had  no  hope  of  preferment,  and  who  was  subject 
to  the  whims  and  caprice  of  the  rich  lay  patron  to  whom 
he  owed  his  place.  The  bishop's  office,  the  cathedral  pre- 
bend, the  rich  benefice,  were  reserved  for  the  sons  of 
the  aristocracy  who  but  too  often  used  the  ecclesiastical 
revenues  to  rival  the  pride  and  pomp  of  the  lay  nobles. 
The  government  of  the  Church,  then,  would  have  been 
in  the  hands  of  the  nobility  as  fully  as  was  the  government 

404 


MEDIEVAL  CHRISTIANITY 

of  lay  society  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  counteracting 
influence  of  monasticism.  The  veneration  in  which  the 
monks  as  a  class  were  held  because  of  their  exemplifica- 
tion of  the  ideals  of  mediaeval  Christianity  caused  them 
to  be  summoned  in  large  numbers  to  the  highest  positions 
in  the  hierarchy;  and  in  the  monastery  itself  low  birth 
was  no  bar  to  preferment.  In  fact,  the  monastic  organi- 
zation was  in  theory  purely  democratic.  The  virtue  of 
humility  was  supposed  to  be  a  bar  to  any  claim  of  birth 
or  family.  We  are  told  for  instance  of  a  king  of  the 
Franks,  the  uncle  o>f  Charlemagne,  who  took  up  the 
monastic  profession  at  Monte  Cassino  and  was  promptly 
set  to  a  scullion's  tasks  in  the  abbey  kitchen  to  prove  the 
genuineness  of  his  religious  calling;  and  similar  stories 
abound  in  the  literature  of  the  age.  On  the  other  hand, 
however  humble  his  origin,  a  monk  O'f  piety  and  ability 
might  rise  to  the  highest  position  in  his  own  house  and 
thence  be  drafted  into  the  secular  hierarchy  of  the  Church. 
In  this  way  it  was  constantly  acquiring  new  blood  and 
renewing  its  strength.  For  a  man  without  family  influ- 
ence there  was  little  opportunity  in  the  Middle  Ages 
save  in  the  Church  and  even  there  the  door  to-  influence 
opened  only  through  the  monastery.  It  has  been  re- 
marked that  just  as  in  Napoleon's  army  every  soldier  felt 
that  he  carried  in  his  knapsack  the  baton  of  a  field  mar- 
shal, so  in  the  Middle  Ages  every  monk  realized  that  the 
highest  positions  in  the  Church  lay  within  his  reach.  The 
Church  could  thus  command  the  best  ability  of  the  age ; 
the  State  could  not.  And  this  is  one  of  the  reasons  for 
the  superiority  of  the  former  over  the  latter  in  that  period. 
To  pass  over  the  case  of  bishops,  the  papal  chair  was 
more  than  once  occupied  by  men  of  humble  origin  and 
in  every  instance,  so  far  as  I  know,  these  men  rose  through 
•the  monastery.  The  mighty  Gregory  VII  was  the  son 
of  a  poor  artisan  of  Northern  Italy;  Benedict  XI  was 
said  to  have  started  life  as  a  shepherd  boy;  Benedict  XII 

405 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

as  a  baker;  Nicholas  V  as  a  poor  doctor;  Sixtus  V  as  a 
swineherd;  John  XXII  as  a  cobbler;  Nicholas  IV,  Coe- 
lestine  V  and  Sixtus  IV  were  the  sons  of  peasants ;  while 
Alexander  V  and  Hadrian  IV  were  once  outcasts  and 
beggars.  The  case  of  the  last-named,  Hadrian  IV,  is 
especially  interesting  as  he  was  the  only  Englishman  who 
ever  occupied  the  papal  chair.  It  should  be  noted,  said  an 
exulting  monastic  chronicler  of  his  own  day,  how  this 
man  was  raised  up  out  of  the  very  dust  to  sit  among 
princes.  Hadrian's  father  was  a  poor  English  clerk  who 
deserted  his  wife  and  family  in  order  to  enter  the  abbey 
of  St.  Albans,  thus  reducing  them  to  such  poverty  that 
the  son  was  obliged  to  apply  daily  at  the  door  of  his 
father's  monastery  for  alms.  Much  scandalized  at  such 
conduct  the  father  drove  him  away  with  vituperation  and 
the  young  lad,  ashamed  to  beg  or  to  dig  in  his  own  coun- 
try, crossed  over  to  France.  Here,  too,  his  begging  met 
with  scant  returns  and  he  wandered  south  into  Provence 
where  he  had  the  good  fortune  to  excite  the  pity  and 
interest  of  a  house  of  regular  canons.  Being  a  youth 
of  pleasing  appearance  and  ready  tongue  he  was  finally 
invited  to  join  the  order.  He  applied  himself  to  learning 
and  finally  acquired  so  great  a  reputation  for  eloquence 
and  wisdom  that  he  was  elected  abbot.  His  administra- 
tion did  not  run  smoothly,  however,  and  his  monks  twice 
cited  him  to  Rome  to  answer  charges  of  misgovernment. 
On  the  second  occasion,  the  pope  acceded  to  the  petition 
of  the  brothers  and  sent  them  home  to  choose  themselves 
a  new  abbot  while  he  retained  their  deposed  chief  at  his 
own  court,  made  him  bishop  of  Albano  and  later,  be- 
cause of  his  abilities,  sent  him  as  papal  legate  to  Den- 
mark and  Norway  to  compose  the  ecclesiastical  troubles 
of  those  kingdoms.  Shortly  after  his  return  there  oc- 
curred a  vacancy  in  the  papacy  and  this  one-time  beggar 
ascended  the  chair  of  St.  Peter  by  unanimous  choice  of 
the  cardinals.  Our  English  chronicler  adds  an  unexpected 

406 


MEDIEVAL  CHRISTIANITY 

note  to  the  effect  that  when  he  had  become  head  of  the 
Church,  Hadrian  richly  endowed  the  abbey  of  St.  Albans 
"  out  of  reverence  for  his  father's  memory." 

But  the  opening  of  a  career  to  talent,  whatever  its 
origin,  was  not  the  only  democratic  feature  of  monasti- 
cism. Nowhere  can  that  characteristic  be  better  observed 
than  in  its  treatment  of  women.  To  the  modern  mind 
the  Church  has  always  seemed  somewhat  unfair  in  its 
attitude  toward  women  in  spite  of  their  devotion  to  re- 
ligion. It  has  always  denied  them  a  share  in  its  govern- 
ment. In  their  hands  the  sacraments  would  be  dese- 
crated. Entrance  into  the  holy  of  holies  has  been  for- 
bidden them.  The  priesthood  would  be  degraded  by 
the  ordination  of  such  candidates.  In  fact,  though  in 
all  ages  the  Church  has  received  its  greatest  support  and 
devotion  from  women,  its  government  and  its  offices 
and  emoluments  have  been  reserved  for  men.  Not  only 
this,  but  too  often  it  has  looked  upon  woman  as  the  chief 
seat  and  instrument  of  the  devil  in  his  warfare  upon 
man.  Now  in  theory  monasticism  shared  this  view  and 
in  fact  did  much  to  foster  and  spread  it,  as  was  perhaps 
natural  in  an  institution  that  laid  such  stress  upon  the 
virtue  of  chastity.  But  in  practice  it  followed  a  different 
line  and  gave  almost  as  much  opportunity  to  women 
as  to  men.  The  convent  of  nuns  is  as  characteristic  a 
feature  as  the  men's  monastery,  and  that  institution  fur- 
nished a  long  list  of  saints  canonized  by  the  Church, 
which  thus  admitted  that  women  might  be  mediators  for 
humanity  in  heaven,  although  they  were  not  fit  thus  to 
serve  in  the  earthly  church.  Even  on  earth,  monasticism 
allowed  women  a  place  among  the  rulers,  for  they  headed 
and  directed  the  convents  and  the  lady  abbess  was  often 
as  distinguished  a  figure  as  the  lord  abbot.  Nay,  there 
was  one  monastic  order,  that  of  Fontevrauld,  composed 
oi  both  men  and  women,  wherein  the  monks  as  well 
as  the  nuns  were  ruled  by  an  abbess  and  none  but  a 

407 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

woman  could  exercise  authority  over  the  combined  estab- 
lishments. 

The  position  afforded  to  women  is  but  one  of  many 
examples  of  the  elasticity  and  adaptability  of  monastic 
institutions.  These  qualities  were  largely  due  to  the 
remarkable  organization  worked  out  by  St.  Benedict  of 
Nursia  in  the  sixth  century.  He  succeeded  in  establish- 
ing for  his  followers  certain  fundamental  and  clearly 
marked  principles  of  life  and  conduct,  and  in  creating 
an  ideal  that  changed  little  from  age  to  age,  while  allow- 
ing a  freedom  in  details  and  practice  that  permitted  west- 
ern monasticism  to  adjust  itself  to  varying  conditions  of 
environment  and  varying  needs  of  spiritual  life.  In  this 
respect  it  differed  from  the  other  institutions  of  the 
Church  which  tended  to  become  fixed  and  rigid  and  in- 
capable of  change.  Herein  lies  the  explanation  of  a  phe- 
nomenon that  has  struck  most  observers,  namely,  that 
the  mediaeval  Church,  in  spite  of  a  rigid  system  of  theol- 
ogy and  an  elaborate  sacramental  machinery,  was  able  to 
make  use  of  all  forms  of  religions  enthusiasm,  and  to 
employ  and  direct  ardent  spiritual  impulses  that  under 
other  conditions  would  have  led  to  revolt  from  the 
Church  and  the  destruction  of  religious  unity.  Hence 
arose  those  reforms  and  revivals  that  so  often  recalled 
the  Church  to  a  consciousness  of  its  mission  and  kept 
alive  its  influence  in  the  hearts  of  men.  Not  a  single 
reform  arose  in  the  Middle  Ages,  not  a  single  new  aspect 
of  religious  experience  and  practice,  but  had  its  inception 
in  monasticism  and  found  expression  most  often  in  the 
establishment  of  new  orders  or  the  reorganization  of  old 
ones. 

Protestantism  has  never  shown  an  equal  ability  to 
make  use  of  and  profit  by  the  varieties  of  religious  ex- 
perience. Too  often  its  leaders  and  prophets  have  found 
no  place  in  the  existing  organization  and  have  found 
themselves  driven  out  and  compelled  to  create  new  and 

408 


MEDIEVAL  CHRISTIANITY 

competing  churches.  It  has  been  remarked  more  than 
once  that  in  the  Middle  Ages  John  Wesley  and  White- 
field  would  have  found  their  places  in  the  existing  Church 
and  the  movement  they  inspired  have  been  embodied  in  a 
reform  finding  expression  in  a  new  monastic  order.  The 
same  thing  might  be  said  of  the  great  founder  of  the 
Salvation  Army  and  his  followers.  I  am  not  sure  but 
that  even  Christian  Science,  had  it  arisen  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  might  not  have  been  shorn  of  some  of  its  peculiar- 
ities and  use  made  of  the  undoubted  spiritual  force  that 
characterizes  the  movement.  We  might  even  have  had, 
in  place  of  Mother  Eddy,  a  new  Saint  Mary  and  the 
cures  wrought  by  her  followers  might  have  been  attributed 
to  her  intercession  in  heaven  instead  of  to  what  is  humor- 
ously designated  as  Science. 

This  power  of  expansion  and  adaptability  which  mon- 
asticism  showed  in  its  best  days  gradually  declined  as  the 
Middle  Ages  drew  toward  a  close.  It  was  itself  an  in- 
stitution with  rules  and  forms  and  ceremonies,  and  as 
these  hardened  and  became  conventionalized  monasticism 
displayed  less  and  less  ability  to  meet  the  new  demands, 
the  new  intellectual  and  spiritual  interests  that  marked 
the  beginnings  of , the  modern  world.  The  last  great  de- 
velopment in  mediaeval  monasticism  occurred  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  thirteenth  century  under  the  leadership  of 
that  most  lovable  and  most  Christ-like  character  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  But  that  much  of 
the  vitality  of  monasticism  was  already  spent  is  seen  in 
the  rapid  deterioration  of  his  order.  Scarcely  was  their 
founder  dead  when  a  bitter  struggle  broke  out  among  the 
Franciscans,  some  wishing  to  follow  out  the  literal  pre- 
cepts and  imitate  the  spirit  of  St.  Francis,  while  the  ma- 
jority sought  to  assimilate  the  order  to  the  older  monastic 
institutions.  The  latter  were  successful  and  the  Spirituals, 
as  their  opponents  were  fittingly  designated,  fell  under 

409 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

ecclesiastical  censure  and  were  forced  either  to  submit 
or  to  be  burned  as  heretics. 

This  incident  shows  how  monasticism  was  losing  the 
power  to  embody  and  express  new  needs  and  impulses. 
That  power  once  lost,  there  was  no  other  organ  then 
existing  within  the  Church  that  could  accomplish  a  re- 
adjustment between  its  institutions  and  the  demands  of  a 
changing  world.  Herein  lies  one  of  the  many  causes  of 
the  Reformation.  During  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
centuries  Europe  was  undergoing  some  of  the  greatest 
changes  in  its  history  and  with  the  loss  of  the  power  of 
internal  development  the  Church  was  no  longer  able  to 
meet  fully  the  requirements  of  the  new  age.  There  fol- 
lowed the  disruption  of  the  Church.  Four  hundred  years 
earlier,  Luther  might  have  been  the  founder  of  a  new 
monastic  order  instead  of  the  leader  o<f  a  revolt,  but  at 
the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  no  other  course 
was  possible  for  a  man  of  his  peculiar  temper  and  fierce 
ardor  than  the  one  he  followed.  It  is  true  that  the  shock 
of  the  Reformation  led  to  a  great  reaction  within  the 
older  Church  and  to  the  formation  of  a  new  monastic 
institution,  in  some  respects  the  most  remarkable  of  all, 
the  Society  of  Jesus.  But  with  the  coming  of  the  Jesuits 
the  Church  had  left  the  Middle  Ages  behind  and  entered 
upon  its  modern  period. 

I  have  pointed  out  that  the  institutional  development 
of  the  mediaeval  Church  threatened  it  with  a  legalistic 
conception  of  salvation  highly  prejudicial  to  the  highest 
spiritual  development,  and  have  indicated  some  of  the 
ways  in  which  this  tendency  was  counterbalanced  by 
monasticism.  Another  characteristic  of  the  period  which 
had  an  influence  on  religious  life  was  the  universal  char- 
acter of  the  Church's  authority.  It  had  no  rivals.  No 
other  form  of  church  organization  existed  in  Europe  and 
heresy  was  at  all  times  and  in  nearly  all  places  absolutely 
negligible.  From  this  circumstance  we  can  trace  two 

410 


MEDIEVAL  CHRISTIANITY 

consequences :  on  the  part  of  the  Church,  an  attitude  of 
tolerance;  and  on  the  part  of  the  masses,  a  simple  and 
child-like  attitude  toward  religion  which  made  the  Chris- 
tian cult  an  integral  part  of  their  lives  to  an  extent 
scarcely  to  be  found  to-day. 

It  may  sound  strange  to  some  ears  to  speak  of  the 
mediaeval  Church  as  tolerant,  and  yet  within  certain  limits 
this  statement  is  true.  So  long  as  the  principle  of  author- 
ity was  maintained  the  Church  felt  no  interest  in  the  sup- 
pression of  opinion  and  discussion  or  even  of  criticism 
directed  against  itself.  The  line  was  drawn  a>t  any  denial 
of  the  Church's  divine  power  and  right  to  control  the 
means  and  methods  of  salvation.  Outside  of  the  Church 
there  is  no  salvation;  such  was  the  statement  of  St.  Cy- 
prian in  the  third  century,  and  to  this  principle  the  Church 
gave  unqualified  adhesion  throughout  the  Middle  Ages. 
Let  anyone  deny  the  efficacy  of  the  sacraments  adminis- 
tered by  a  duly  qualified  priest,  even  though  that  priest 
were  a  sinner  of  the  worst  type,  and  no  mercy  would  be 
shown  the  rebel;  but  once  the  ultimate  authority  of  the 
Church  as  the  mediator  of  salvation  was  acknowledged, 
the  widest  range  of  discussion  and  speculation  was  per- 
mitted to  those  who  were  clever  enough  to  reconcile  their 
positions  with  this  fundamental  assumption.  Even  the 
basic  doctrines  of  theology  were  freely  handled  and  dis- 
cussed without  restraint,  and  a  Berengar  of  Tours  could 
attack  such  a  fundamental  doctrine  of  the  Church  as 
transubstantiation  without  stirring  up  a  Gregory  VII  to 
persecution,  for  Berengar  admitted  the  final  authority  of 
the  Church.  With  this  reservation  there  were  no  ideas 
and  no  arguments  but  that  could  be  and  were  put  forward 
and  defended  by  scholars. 

As  to  criticism  of  the  Church,  its  practices,  acts,  and 
shortcomings,  there  was  no  attempt  at  suppression,  and 
attacks  on  ecclesiastical  abuses  were  as  open  and  bitter  as 
anything  brought  forward  by  the  Protestants  in  the  six- 

411 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

teenth  century.  That  such  attacks  could  be  tolerated,  in 
fact  welcomed  in  some  quarters,  was  due  to  the  absence 
of  rival  churches.  Everyone  accepted  -the  institution  as 
divinely  ordained  by  Heaven  and  these  criticisms  were 
regarded  with  much  the  same  tolerance  that  we  show  to 
the  bitter  tirades  of  reformers  against  the  corruption  and 
incompetence  of  our  own  government  because  we  know 
that  the  general  principles  of  our  political  institutions  are 
loyally  accepted  by  the  critics  themselves.  In  the  midst  of 
this  general  confidence  in  the  Church  even  the  short- 
comings of  Divine  Providence  might  be  referred  to  with- 
out danger  of  punishment.  A  popular  preacher  of  the 
thirteenth  century  in  one  of  his  sermons  thus  alludes  to 
the  mismanagement  of  human  affairs.  A  certain  mounte- 
bank, he  said,  was  on  his  deathbed  and  called  to  him  a 
priest  who  warned  him  to  make  his  will.  "  Very  well," 
said  the  mountebank,  "  I  have  two  horses.  One  of  them 
I  give  to  the  bishop,  the  other  to  the  king.  As  to  my 
clothing,  it  is  to  be  divided  between  the  baron  and  the 
other  rich  men."  "  But,"  cried  the  priest,  "  what  about 
the  poor?  "  "  Why,"  replied  the  mountebank,  "  do  you 
not  preach  to  us  every  day  that  we  should  imitate  God? 
I  am  imitating  Him,  for  He  gives  everything  to  the  rich 
and  nothing  to  the  poor."  It  would  be  hard  to  find  a  more 
caustic  comment  from  a  modern  socialist. 

Universal  acceptance  of  the  Church  had  another  con- 
sequence, namely,  the  attitude  of  the  common  man  toward 
religion.  It  was  so  much  a  part  of  his  daily  life  and 
was  accepted  as  so  natural  an  element  of  human  experi- 
ence that  there  was  none  of  'that  half-timid,  half-apolo- 
getic attitude  sometimes  met  with  to-day  when  the  subject 
of  religion  is  broached.  There  was  no  separation  be- 
tween religion  and  business  or  between  religion  and  pleas- 
ure. Sunday  was  not  the  Sabbath  of  the  Jews  nor  the 
Sabbath  of  the  Puritans.  It  was  of  itself  scarcely  more 
sacred  to  religion  than  the  other  six  days  of  the  week, 

412 


MEDIAEVAL  CHRISTIANITY 

save  that  the  compulsory  cessation  of  labor  gave  a  greater 
opportunity  for  attendance  at  divine  service.  When  mass 
had  been  heard,  the  remainder  of  the  day  was  frankly 
devoted  to  pleasure  and  social  enjoyment.  But  if  Sunday 
was  not  set  aside  exclusively  for  religion,  neither  was 
religion  reserved  for  Sunday.  The  doors  of  the  church 
stood  open  all  days  alike  and  at  any  hour  one  might  step 
within  to  meditate  or  satisfy  the  impulse  of  worship,  or 
to  use  the  sacred  edifice  for  any  of  the  ordinary  purposes 
of  daily  life.  "  Such  customs,"  says  a  French  historian, 
"  which  seem  to  us  like  a  violation  of  the  sanctuary  were 
fully  authorized  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Church  al- 
lowed the  people  to  amuse  themselves  and  the  clergy 
were  one  with  the  people  in  this  matter.  Religion  in 
those  days  was  not  sad  and  austere.  Life  was  not  divided 
into  two  parts,  a  religious  and  a  worldly.  Nothing  was 
profane,  for  religion  embraced  all  of  human  existence. 
People  journeyed  along  the  road  of  salvation  with  gay 
hearts.  Pilgrimages  were  often  pleasant  excursions.  Re- 
ligious assemblies,  pardons  as  they  are  still  called  in 
Brittany,  were  noisy  and  crowded  gatherings  where 
peddlers,  wandering  minstrels  and  clowns  opened  their 
booths  or  set  up  their  platforms.  One  did  not  pull  a 
long  face  when  he  entered  a  church,  for  the  church  was  a 
continuation  of  the  street  and  the  common  meeting  place 
of  all.  The  choir,  indeed,  was  reserved  for  worship,  but 
the  nave  belonged  to  the  people.  There  meetings  were 
held,  even  councils  of  war  and  assemblies  of  insurgent 
citizens.  One  went  there  to  stroll  about,  to  exchange 
gossip,  to  talk  business.  There  on  rainy  days  the  fairs 
were  held  for  lack  of  a  better  place.  The  church  bell 
was  rung  for  the  opening  of  the  market,  for  town  meet- 
ings and  for  insurrections,  as  well  as  for  the  divine  offices. 
The  churchman,  whether  priest  or  canon,  was  as  worldly 
as  the  layman,  and  the  laymen  were  as  religious  as  the 
priests.  Even  among  the  monks  there  were  jolly  souls 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

who  were  invited  to  the  weddings  and  the  family  festivals, 
and  who  enjoyed  good  stories  even  when  told  against 
themselves.  Holy  men  these,  nevertheless,  and  in  spite 
of  all  very  edifying,  since  they  rendered  religion  lovable 
and  caused  some  Christian  ideas  to  penetrate  into  the 
rude  mass  of  the  people.  None  of  the  monks  were  more 
popular  than  the  Franciscans.  In  the  garb  of  their  order, 
which  seems  strange  to  us  to-day  but  differed  little  from 
the  costume  of  that  period,  they  went  about  preaching, 
collecting,  begging,  entering  the  homes,  inquiring  about 
the  wife  and  children,  giving  advice,  prescribing  reme- 
dies, distributing  blessings.  Mingling  closely  with  the 
common  people  they  shared  all  their  instincts,  even  the 
instinct  of  revolt  against  the  great  lords  of  the  Church, 
and  naturally  sided  with  the  communes  against  their 
lord  bishops." 

Any  consideration  of  the  popular  religious  life  of 
the  Middle  Ages  would  be  incomplete  that  did  not  take 
into  account  their  conception  of  the  physical  universe  and 
of  the  forces  which  governed  it.  Those  centuries  have 
often  been  designated  as  the  Age  of  Faith,  but  their 
superiority  to  modern  times  in  respect  to  this  virtue  was 
due  in  some  degree  to  their  lack  of  knowledge.  The  con- 
ception of  natural  phenomena  governed  by  fixed  and 
unchanging  laws  was  unknown.  Every  occurrence  in 
nature  was  the  result  of  the  arbitrary  act  of  some  higher 
power,  friendly  or  malignant.  The  air  was  the  special 
domain  of  demons  who  sought  thence  to  work  their 
evil  wills  on  men.  Every  unpropitious  event  was  the 
work  of  devils — the  storm,  the  drought,  the  pest  of 
insects,  the  attack  of  savage  beasts ;  so,  too,  disease  and 
misfortune  of  every  kind,  war,  pestilence  and  famine, 
lightning  and  shipwreck.  To-day,  with  increasing  con- 
trol over  the  forces  of  nature  and  greater  knowledge  of 
the  laws  under  which  the  physical  universe  functions, 
man  has  been  enabled  to  modify  his  material  environ- 

414 


MEDIAEVAL  CHRISTIANITY 

ment,  to  avoid  many  catastrophes  and  to  secure  fairly 
adequate  and  regular  means  of  sustaining  life.  We  have 
harnessed  the  forces  of  nature  and  feel  that  we  know  the 
proximate  causes  of  physical  phenomena  even  though  the 
ultimate  cause  still  escapes  us.  The  knowledge  that  the 
heavenly  bodies  move  in  orbits  that  can  be  mathematically 
determined,  that  the  spread  of  malaria  is  due  to  mos- 
quitoes whose  elimination  causes  the  disease  to  disappear, 
that  small-pox  is  a  germ  disease  that  can  be  combatted 
by  sanitation  and  vaccination — facts  such  as  these  tend 
to  weaken  a  belief  in  the  arbitrary  interference  of  good 
or  bad  spirits  in  the  orderly  course  of  nature.  But  in  the 
Middle  Ages  the  conception  of  the  reign  of  law  was 
wanting.  Each  occurrence  was  due  to  the  interference 
of  supernatural  powers  actuated  by  the  same  sort  of 
motives  as  man  himself  and  differing  from  him  chiefly 
only  in  the  possession  of  greater  powers.  The  influence 
of  Satan  and  his  hosts  was  measured  by  the  extent  of  the 
evils  of  daily  life,  and  mediaeval  man  would  have  lived 
in  an  atmosphere  of  terror  had  he  not  been  able  to  sum- 
mon to  his  aid  the  help  that  God  placed  within  his  reach 
through  the  mediation  of  the  Church. 

To  the  popular  mind  this  divine  protection  and  assist- 
ance could  most  readily  be  secured  by  appeal  to  the  saints. 
For  their  subordinate  position  in  heaven,  for  their  want 
of  divine  authority,  for  their  possession  of  intermediary 
powers  only,  compensation  was  found  in  their  numbers, 
their  human  qualities  and  the  restriction  of  their  interests 
in  so  many  cases  to  particular  fields  of  activity.  Thus 
each  guild  of  workmen  was  placed  under  the  protection 
of  a  particular  saint,  each  district  had  its  patron 
in  heaven.  Some  saints  instead  of  looking  after  a 
local  group  of  people  interested  themselves  in  some 
special  field  of  work.  St.  Nicholas  saved  shipwrecked 
sailors;  St.  Eligius  cured  sick  horses,  probably  because 
he  was  the  patron  of  blacksmiths;  St.  Didier  was  ap- 

415 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

pealed  to  for  protection  of  the  crops  from  moles  and  ver- 
min; in  Beam  there  was  a  local  saint,  Plouradou,  who 
kept  children  from  crying.  In  fact,  there  was  not  a 
danger  nor  an  annoyance  that  could  threaten  the  people 
of  the  Middle  Ages  but  there  was  some  saint  whose  busi- 
ness it  was  to  furnish  protection  when  properly  appealed 
to.  Nations,  too,  had  their  heavenly  advocates.  Thus 
St.  George  fought  for  England  and  St.  Michael  for 
France,  so  that  when  these  two  countries  were  at  war 
there  must  have  been  something  like  commotion  in  heaven. 

In  popular  religion  pagan  ideas  of  magic  survived 
throughout  the  Middle  Ages.  Honor  paid  to  the  heavenly 
powers  was  supposed  to  secure  their  intervention  without 
regard  to  the  moral  condition  or  spiritual  state  of  the 
suppliant,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  story  of  the  robber  who 
had  such  veneration  for  the  Virgin  that  he  never  set  out 
to  commit  a  crime  without  first  repeating  an  Ave  Maria 
and  praying  her  not  to  permit  him  to  die  in  that  sin. 
When  at  last  he  was  captured  and  hung  he  remained 
alive  three  days  on  the  gallows  and  when  taken  down 
by  the  astonished  authorities  declared  that  his  feet  had 
been  supported  by  a  beautiful  virgin  all  that  time  so  that 
he  did  not  choke.  On  promising  amendment,  he  was 
allowed  to  go  free.  Another  story  showing  the  magic 
effect  of  formula  is  that  of  the  bird  owned  by  a  pious 
old  woman  who  had  such  a  veneration  for  St.  Thomas 
of  Canterbury  that  she  was  always  repeating,  "  St. 
Thomas,  have  mercy  on  me,"  until  the  bird  had  learned 
the  phrase.  One  day  a  hawk  seized  the  old  woman's  pet 
and  was  flying  away  with  it  when  it  cried  out  the  magic 
words  and  was  released  in  safety  by  the  interposition  of 
the  saint. 

Like  examples  of  superstition  might  be  multiplied  in- 
definitely ;  and  proofs  of  the  use  by  the  ignorant  masses 
of  relics,  holy  water,  the  Eucharist,  etc.,  as  fetishes  pure 
and  simple  abound  in  mediaeval  literature.  Such  practices, 

416 


MEDIEVAL  CHRISTIANITY 

however,  were  never  sanctioned  by  the  official  teaching 
of  the  Church,  though  it  must  be  admitted  that  its  officers 
often  made  use  of  these  superstitions  and  even  encouraged, 
them  as  a  means  of  restraint  and  control  over  the  turbu- 
lent masses.  And  this  cannot  be  reckoned  as  cunning  or 
hypocrisy  on  their  part,  for  the  clergy  shared  with  the 
people  their  culture  and  their  outlook  upon  the  world. 

In  considering  various  characteristics  of  mediaeval 
Christianity  we  cannot  help  observing  that  most  of  them 
have  come  down  in  some  form  and  to  some  extent  into 
the  religious  society  of  our  own  day.  Manifestations  of 
superstition  and  religious  terror  are  by  no  means  rare 
among  the  ignorant.  In  many  directions  the  deadening 
effects  of  ceremonial  observances  on  the  free  develop- 
ment of  spiritual  life  may  be  noted.  In  the  matter  of 
tolerance  toward  religious  discussion  and  criticism,  we 
make  claim  to  a  still  greater  amount  of  liberality  even 
though  it  may  sometimes  be  based  on  indifference  rather 
than  on  conviction.  But  there  was  one  respect  in  which 
the  position  of  the  mediaeval  Church  was  unique,  since  it 
resulted  from  a  condition  of  society  never  likely  to  be 
seen  again.  I  refer  to  the  relations  of  the  Church  to  the 
State  and  the  theories  upon  which  the  relation  was  based. 

Throughout  the  Middle  Ages  the  Church  and  the  State 
were  united  and  the  two  institutions  were  considered 
simply  as  two  aspects  of  a  common  and  unified  organiza- 
tion of  mankind.  Both  depended  for  their  sanction  on 
the  divine  will,  and  inasmuch  as  that  will  could  not  be 
conceived  as  expressing  itself  in  heterogeneous  forms  any 
real  dissociation  of  Church  and  State  seemed  like  a  denial 
of  the  divine  unity.  The  two  were,  it  is  true,  separate 
organizations  and  each  pursued  certain  ends  peculiar  to 
itself,  but  both  existed  for  one  ultimate  purpose,  the  sal- 
vation of  man.  St.  Augustine,  in  the  fifth  century,  had 
been  the  first  to  consider  their  relation  to  each  otfier  as 
parts  of  the  same  divine  plan.  In  one  of  the  great  books 
27  417 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

of  earlier  Christian  literature,  De  Civitate  Dei,  "  God's 
State/'  he  taught  that  the  various  empires  of  the  ancient 
world  had  come  into  existence  by  the  will  of  God  in  order 
that  mankind  might  be  brought  together  in  unity  and  dis- 
ciplined so  as  to  prepare  the  world  for  the  appearance  of 
Christ  and  the  reception  of  His  message.  Now  that  Christ 
had  come,  the  Church  He  founded  was  the  true  and  the 
higher  State  to  which  all  His  followers  owed  their  first 
allegiance.  Not  that  Augustine  conceived  that  the  new 
dispensation  had  removed  all  need  of  the  temporal  state. 
It  still  existed  to  suppress  crime,  to  preserve  order,  to 
defend  the  Church  of  God  against  its  enemies  and  main- 
tain the  unity  of  the  faith.  But  its  position  was  to  be  a 
subordinate  one  and  its  authority  dependent  on  obedience 
to  God's  will.  This  view  of  the  inferior  and  ancillary 
position  of  the  State  in  relation  to  the  Church  was  never 
lost  sight  of,  though  it  was  obscured  in  the  following 
centuries  by  the  confusion  and  anarchy  attendant  on  the 
fall  of  the  Roman  empire  and  the  setting  up  of  the  new 
Germanic  governments.  For  a  time,  indeed,  it  seemed 
as  though  the  position  of  the  two  organizations  was  to 
be  reversed,  for  the  secular  powers  had  need  of  the 
Church's  wealth  and  authority,  and  its  separate  life  was 
in  danger  of  being  absorbed  by  feudalism.  Toward  the 
end  of  the  eleventh  century,  however,  the  ecclesiastical 
theory  was  reestablished  and  maintained  its  ascendancy 
in  the  realm  of  political  speculation  throughout  the  re- 
mainder of  the  mediaeval  period. 

It  was  an  age  when  men's  minds  were  completely 
dominated  by  the  conception  of  unity.  The  universe  was 
a  single  whole  ruled  by  one  Lord,  Jesus  Christ.  So, 
too,  each  part  of  the  universe  was  a  unit  under  the  same 
Ruler.  Mankind  itself  was  one  mystic  body  ruled  by 
Christ  and  organized  in  one  Church  of  which  He  was 
the  head.  His  representative  and  vice-regent  on  earth, 
however,  was  the  pope  to  whom  men  owed  obedience  in 

418 


MEDIEVAL  CHRISTIANITY 

all  things  as  to  God.  If  it  had  not  been  for  Adam's  dis- 
obedience and  fall,  no  other  organization  would  have  been 
necessary.  But  with  sin  came  violence  and  with  violence, 
domination  of  man  over  his  fellows.  Thus  arose  political 
government,  which  was  permitted,  indeed,  but  not  or- 
dained, by  God.  "  Who  does  not  know,"  wrote  Pope 
Gregory  VII,  "  that  kings  and  dukes  have  inherited  their 
power  from  those  who,  ignorant  of  God,  have  succeeded 
with  blind  presumption  in  establishing  domination  over 
their  equals  by  means  of  pride,  rapine,  perfidy,  murder, 
and  all  wickedness,  at  the  instigation  of  the  devil,  the 
prince  of  this  world?  " 

Such  being  the  origin  of  secular  government,  the 
creature  of  ambition  and  injustice,  it  could  find  a  legiti- 
mate place  in  the  scheme  of  Divine  Providence  only  by 
being  sanctified  and  hallowed  by  the  Church.  Worldly 
power  was  instituted  by  man,  the  ecclesiastical  power  by 
God,  which  thus  has  the  right  and  the  duty  to  supervise 
secular  government.  The  humblest  priest,  through  the 
authority  given  him  to  administer  the  sacraments  and 
thus  nourish  the  spiritual  life  of  man,  is  superior  to  the 
greatest  king  or  emperor  whose  activities  are  limited  to 
mundane  interests;  while  the  pope,  who  unites  in  himself 
the  whole  sum  of  sacerdotal  power,  is  the  supervisor 
and  ruler  of  all  mankind.  It  is  by  his  hands,  as  the 
divinely  appointed  head  of  the  Church,  that  God  transmits 
to  princes  their  authority  over  their  subjects,  and  thus 
consecrates  the  State  so  far  as  it  is  capable  of  consecra- 
tion. If,  however,  the  prince  neglects  his  duty,  if  he  is 
unjust  or  tyrannical,  if  he  is  unmindful  of  the  spiritual 
welfare  of  his  subjects  or  of  the  interests  of  the 
superior  body,  the  Church,  it  is  for  the  pope  to  depose 
him,  to  release  his  subjects  from  their  oaths  of  allegiance 
and  to  secure  a  new  ruler  who  is  willing  to  promote  their 
eternal  welfare. 

These  views  of  the  subordination  of  the  temporal  to 

419 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

the  spiritual  power  were  expressed  most  clearly  in  the 
Middle  Ages  by  Boniface  VIII  in  the  famous  bull  Unam 
Sanctam.  There  is,  he  said,  but  one  universal  Church, 
of  which  Christ  is  head,  whose  vicar  on  earth  is  the 
successor  of  St.  Peter.  In  this  Church  and  under  its 
control  are  two  kinds  of  authority,  spiritual  and  tem- 
poral. Whoever  claims  that  the  temporal  power  is  not  in 
.the  hands  of  the  pope  has  ill  understood  God's  ordi- 
nances. Both  are  under  the  control  o*f  the  Church.  The 
spiritual  power  is  wielded  directly  by  the  priest,  but  the 
temporal  by  the  hands  of  kings  and  soldiers,  yet  only 
for  the  benefit  of  the  Church  and  at  its  will  and  suffer- 
ance. It  is  fitting  that  temporal  authority  should  be  sub- 
ject to  the  spiritual  power  for  it  is  a  divine  ordinance 
that  the  lower  should  be  ruled  by  the  higher.  "  It  be- 
hooves us,  therefore,"  he  goes  on,  "  the  more  freely  to 
confess  that  the  spiritual  power  excels  in  dignity  and 
nobility  any  form  whatsoever  of  earthly  power,  as  spirit- 
ual interests  exceed  the  temporal  in  importance.  .  .  . 
For  the  truth  bearing  witness,  it  is  for  the  spiritual  power 
to  establish  the  earthly  power  and  to  judge  it,  if  it  be 
not  good.  ...  If  the  earthly  power  shall  err,  it  shall  be 
judged  by  the  spiritual  power ;  if  the  lesser  spiritual  power 
err,  it  shall  be  judged  by  the  higher.  But  if  the  supreme 
power  (i.e.,  the  papacy)  err,  it  can  be  judged  by  God 
alone  and  not  by  man,  the  apostles  bearing  witness,  say- 
ing, the  spiritual  man  judges  all  things  but  he  himself  is 
judged  by  no  one.  .  .  .  We,  moreover,  proclaim,  declare 
and  pronounce  that  it  is  altogether  necessary  to  salvation 
for  every  human  being  to  be  subject  to  the  Roman 
Pontiff." 

Though  this  famous  exposition  of  the  position  of  the 
Church  in  its  relation  to  the  State  was  not  made  until 
the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century,  the  same  theory  was 
implied  and  acted  upon  in  the  eleventh  by  Gregory  VII. 
His  ideal  was  that  of  a  pope  supervising,  as  God's  agent, 

420 


MEDIAEVAL  CHRISTIANITY 

the  administration  of  the  world,  protecting  the  weak, 
encouraging  the  upright,  warning  and  deposing  the  despot 
and  ushering  in  the  reign  of  justice  and  righteousness. 
It  was  a  lofty  ideal,  "  and  could  his  dreams  have  been 
carried  out  in  the  purity  and  scope  of  their  creator  they 
would  have  constituted  '  almost  the  highest  earthly  form 
in  which  mankind  could  have  seen  the  expression  of  its 
unity  and  harmony.' '  That  they  were  impossible  of 
realization  was  due  to  the  fallible  human  nature  of  the 
men  who  directed  the  destinies  of  the  Church.  What- 
ever may  be  our  beliefs  as  to  its  divine  inspiration,  it 
would  be  a  bold  student  of  history  who  would  claim  that 
this  inspiration  extended  to  the  political  activities  of  the 
popes  in  their  relations  with  the  princes  of  Europe.  The 
position  of  the  head  of  Christendom  as  temporal  ruler  of 
a  state  in  Central  Italy,  the  struggles  and  intrigues  neces- 
sary to  protect  his  political  independence,  first  against  the 
claims  of  Germany  and  later  against  those  of  France  and 
Spain,  as  well  as  the  worldly  ambitions  and  temporal 
interests  of  churchmen  elsewhere,  demonstrated  the  weak- 
ness of  their  claim  to  be  acting  as  the  unbiased  arbiters 
of  Europe. 

And  yet,  though  the  Church's  claim  to  the  supervision 
of  the  State's  activities  and  to  the  right  of  judging  the 
justice  of  its  conduct  was  impossible  of  realization,  we 
should  not  blind  ourselves  either  to  the  greatness  of  its 
motives  or  the  value  of  what  it  really  accomplished  in 
this  direction.  Outside  the  papal  domain  in  Italy  the 
Church  was  an  international  institution,  standing  above 
all  secular  governments.  Its  universal  recognition  made 
it  a  power  whose  moral  judgments  had  more  weight  than 
positive  laws  and  the  fear  of  its  condemnation  restrained 
many  an  unjust  ruler  and  made  the  lot  of  the  common 
people  more  endurable.  It  was  a  standing  protest  against 
the  doctrine  of  the  unlimited  sovereignty  of  the  State. 
To-day  the  State  stands  above  everything.  The  life  and 

421 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

fate  of  every  one  of  its  citizens  is  subject  to  its  absolute 
commands  and  there  is  no  appeal  from  its  decisions,  how- 
ever unjust  they  may  be.  This  was  a  situation  unknown 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  we  are  suffering  to-day  for  the 
want  of  some  institution  through  which  the  moral  sense 
of  mankind  may  assert  itself  against  the  demands  of 
political  force. 

The  Church  still  holds  to-day  to  the  general  premises 
on  which  it  based  the  theory  of  its  relations  to  the  State 
in  the  Middle  Ages.  These  premises  include  a  belief  in 
the  divine  governance  of  human  affairs,  the  divine  insti- 
tution of  all  human  authority  and  the  right  of  the  Church 
to  the  free  exercise  of  its  functions  as  the  guardian  of 
the  eternal  interests  of  mankind  as  opposed  to  their  tem- 
poral interests,  which  are  the  care  of  the  State.  The  prac- 
tical difference  in  the  application  of  these  principles, 
then  and  now,  is  due  first,  to  the  greater  emphasis  laid 
in  the  Middle  Ages  on  the  claims  of  the  future  life, 
owing  partly  to  the  hard  conditions  under  which  men 
lived  and  the  need  of  offering  a  compensation  in  the 
world  to  come  for  the  evils  and  sufferings  of  this  life; 
and,  second,  to  the  low  stage  of  mediaeval  political  or- 
ganization which  disqualified  the  State  from  performing 
many  of  the  functions  which  it  undertakes  to-day.  This 
weakness  enabled  the  Church  to  set  what  limits  it  chose 
to  its  own  activities  and  even  forced  it  to  assume  the 
control  of  many  interests  which  in  modern  times  are  con- 
sidered either  partly  or  entirely  secular  and  so  under  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  State.  Thus,  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  Church  attended  to  the  relief  of  the  poor  and  super- 
vised all  charitable  activities.  Education,  whether  re- 
ligious or  secular,  was  in  its  charge  and  it  preserved  a 
strict  censorship  of  ideas.  It  maintained  a  system  of 
courts  which  followed  a  more  enlightened  procedure  than 
the  courts  of  the  state  and  had  a  wider  jurisdiction. 
Not  only  did  they  claim  exclusive  control  over  Church 

422 


MEDIEVAL  CHRISTIANITY 

property  and  over  all  cases,  whether  civil  or  criminal,  in 
which  the  members  of  the  clergy  were  interested,  and 
in  cases  involving  the  rites  or  sacraments  of  the  Church, 
such  as  marriage,  legitimacy,  and  the  probate  of  wills; 
but  these  Church  courts  were  also  open  for  the  ad- 
judication of  all  affairs  of  the  weak  and  helpless,  such  as 
widows  and  orphans  and  for  all  who  claimed  to  be  the 
victims  of  injustice  in  the  secular  courts.  In  addition 
to  the  wide  jurisdiction  of  its  courts,  the  Church  claimed 
the  exclusive  control  of  the  immense  wealth  which  the 
piety  of  ages  had  bestowed  upon  it  until  it  was  estimated 
that  it  possessed  one-quarter  of  the  land  of  Europe.  It 
denied  the  right  of  the  State  to  tax  this  property  or  to 
have  any  voice  in  its  management  or  disposition.  It  even 
went  farther  and  sought  to  determine,  to  a  considerable 
extent,  the  economic  conditions  under  which  the  people  of 
Europe  lived.  It  forbade  the  charging  of  interest  on  loans ; 
it  advocated  the  theory  of  the  just  price  for  commodities, 
which  tended  to  interfere  with  the  natural  laws  of  supply 
and  demand ;  it  was  interested  in  questions  of  competition 
and  sought  to  maintain  an  equality  of  economic  oppor- 
tunity among  members  of  the  same  class  or  trade;  and 
it  attempted  to  prevent  the  exploitation  of  the  weak  by 
the  strong,  so  that  a  form  of  Christian  socialism  may  bf 
said  to  have  existed  in  the  Middle  Ages. 

Although  the  exercise  of  all  these  forms  o-f  secular 
authority  was  largely  forced  upon  the  Church  by  the  inca- 
pacity of  the  temporal  power,  they  gave  rise  to  claims  and 
ambitions  which  the  ecclesiastical  organization  refused 
to  abandon  voluntarily  when  Europe  emerged  from  feu- 
dalism and  the  State  attempted  to  resume  those  functions 
which  it  had  allowed  to  fall  from  its  grasp  since  the  days 
of  the  Roman  empire.  There  is  an  instinct  in  human 
nature  which  prevents  any  body  of  men  from  willingly 
surrendering  such  ppwers  or  authority  as  they  have  once 
possessed  and  so  the  Church  clung  to  its  secular  preroga- 

423 


RELIGIONS  OF  THE  PAST  AND  PRESENT 

tives  long  after  the  conditions  which  created  them  had 
ceased  to  exist.  Before  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages 
the  modern  State  had  come  into  existence,  with  its  strong 
national  feeling,  its  intense  patriotism,  its  secularization 
of  interests  and  its  jealousy  of  outside  interference.  It 
demanded  the  exclusive  control  of  its  own  destinies  and 
strongly  resented  the  interference  of  the  Church.  There 
followed  from  the  thirteenth  century  down  a  series  of 
struggles  between  the  secular  and  the  ecclesiastical  powers 
in  which  the  Church  yielded  step  by  step,  but  only  under 
the  pressure  of  superior  force.  It  never  willingly  sur- 
rendered a  single  position  and  its  reluctance  to  grant  con- 
cessions, to  recognize  the  changed  conditions  that  had 
given  the  new  states  the  power  and  the  will  to  admin- 
ister the  temporal  affairs  of  their  own  citizens,  created  in 
those  bodies  a  spirit  of  suspicion  and  hostility  that  was 
the  political  cause  of  the  Reformation.  When  to  these 
causes  of  disaffection  there  were  added  the  secular  pre- 
occupations following  the  Renaissance,  the  economic 
rivalries  that  arose  after  the  Age  of  Discovery  and  the 
theological  disputes  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  Great 
Revolt  occurred,  and  the  mediaeval  ecclesiastical  system 
disappeared. 

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1914. 
ALZOG,  J.  :    Manual  of  Universal  Church  History,  3  vols.,  Cincin- 

nati, 1899. 
WORKMAN,  H.  B.:    The  Church  of  the  West  in  the  Middle  Ages, 

2  vols.,  London,  1900. 
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SABATIER,  P. :  St.  Francis  of  Assist,  N.  Y.,  1903. 
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TAYLOR,  H.  O. :    The  Medieval  Mind,  2  vols.,  London,  1911. 
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